Podcasts about Optum

Over 160 million Americans are served by Optum, yet many still don't fully understand what it actually does—or why it matters.Dr. Patrick Conway, newly appointed CEO of Optum and former head of CMS Innovation Center and Blue Cross NC, joins Steve for a wide-ranging discussion on the state of healthcare delivery, affordability, and the potential of value-based care at a national scale. With experience spanning the frontlines of medicine to top government and corporate leadership, Conway breaks down how Optum aims to improve care while controlling costs—and why he continues to practice as a pediatric hospitalist on weekends.We cover:

The latest episode of Digital Health Unplugged, brought to you in partnership with Optum, delves into the firm's acquisition of EMIS and what it means for the NHS and health technology sector. Host Jordan Sollof is joined by Dr Shaun O'Hanlon, group chief medical officer at Optum, to discuss why it was necessary for EMIS to become Optum and whether there is an element of risk in losing the EMIS name which has been well-known for several decades in the healthcare sector. O'Hanlon talks about the future for the population health and vaccination programmes, which EMIS previously played a major role in, and whether Optum's focus will remain on the UK or shift to operating globally. He also outlines his vision for the future of primary health technology and what the key plans and goals are for the future for Optum. Digital Health would like to thank its partner, Optum, for this episode. Guest: Dr Shaun O'Hanlon, group chief medical officer at Optum  

Believe it or not, 60% of healthcare payments in the US are tied to value. But it's still surprisingly hard to find examples of health systems that have been doing VBC at scale, successfully, over time. So that's what Advisory Board researchers set out to do. And across 66 conversations with 44 systems, we found four systems with approaches worth emulating. This week, we're unpacking the approach at one of those systems: Advocate Health. Host Abby Burns sits down with Don Calcagno, Chief Population Health Officer and President of Advocate's largest clinically integrated network, Advocate Physician Partners. Don lays out how putting operations at the center has led Advocate to become one of the top-performing systems in Medicare risk models, generate millions of dollars in savings, and, most importantly, improve quality of care. Not to mention, juggle over 100 VBC contracts across 13 accountable care organizations and clinically integrated networks, and carry $1 billion in capitated risk. Links: Read the case study: Inside Advocate Health's VBC approach that saved $136M VBC self-assessment: Find out where your organization stands 2025 Advisory Board Summit- Carlsbad, CA - join us for the full event, and check out our session featuring another VBC case study Registration is live for our VBC Roundtable in October: HOME - How to deliver the next era of VBC Ep. 243: What's now and what's next in value-based care How UNC Health made VBC sustainable in an academic health system Optum Advisory can help you create a VBC strategy for growth and profitability. Connect with an expert. How to succeed in VBC — according to Optum experts VBC success is possible. Here's how. A transcript of this episode as well as more information and resources can be found on RadioAdvisory.advisory.com.

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Deb Bubb is the former Chief People Officer at Optum and Co-founder of The Institute For Moral Imagination.  This ThoughtCast is an insightful chat about creativity, passion, and purpose. Our guest, Deb Bubb, shared with us how she pivoted into a new chapter of her life, chasing a passion and building something new. Deb also spoke about the fears, uncertainty, and challenges of making a transition and embracing the unknown. The conversation centered on the idea that every life is a creative act. By embracing all of our creativity, we have a way to access all our potential. She shares how she has built creativity and art into her life. This discussion will energize you to dive into your creativity and look for art all around you.  Get in touch Visit us at tignum.com Email us at contact@tignum.com Think clearer. Show up better. Maximize impact.

Welcome to the Health Marketing Collective, where strong leadership meets marketing excellence. In today's episode, host Sara Payne sits down with Mike Cronin, Cofounder and Chief Strategist at Verve, to explore the evolving landscape of creativity in B2B healthcare marketing. Mike, whose impressive résumé includes brand and campaign strategy for UnitedHealth Group, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Optum, and revered consumer brands like Harley-Davidson and Samuel Adams, brings a rare blend of creative vision and strategic rigor to his work. His fundamental belief? That creative work's purpose is to move people, not just fill space. In this conversation, Mike and Sara dive deep into how B2B health brands can move beyond “safe” ideas and unlock emotionally resonant, unforgettable campaigns—even within highly regulated and risk-averse spaces. They discuss why simplicity is a superpower, the importance of strategic “boxes,” and how marketing leaders can create environments where big swings are encouraged, not stifled. Along the way, Mike shares memorable stories from his work (including a campaign that fused Lizzo's “Good as Hell” into healthcare advertising), offers insight into the universal human truths marketers often miss, and outlines what separates teams that produce great creative from those that simply make noise. Thank you for being part of the Health Marketing Collective, where strong leadership meets marketing excellence. The future of health care depends on it. Key Takeaways: Creativity Thrives Within Constraints: Mike challenges the conventional wisdom of “thinking outside the box.” He argues that true creativity is often unlocked not by limitless freedom, but by well-defined strategic constraints. It's within the confines of a focused brief—what Mike calls “the freedom of a tight brief”—that intelligent, emotionally resonant ideas emerge. Rather than aiming for “crazy” or “flashy,” the best creative is smart, intentional, and purpose-driven. Emotion and Human Truth are Universal, Even in B2B: B2B often gravitates toward rational benefits: cost savings, efficiency, or productivity. But, as Mike notes, even financial administrators and clinicians are humans first—they respond to messages that tap into universal emotions and experiences: hope, fear, dignity, and relief from frustration. Brands that connect on this human level, rather than just touting features and benefits, become memorable and meaningful. Strategic Alignment is the Key to Unlocking Great Creative: Teams that produce truly breakthrough work consistently prioritize strategy. When everyone is aligned on the core insight and brief, creativity can flow freely within those parameters. Conversely, weak or vague direction leads to “safe,” generic campaigns. Mike's experience shows that great creative always starts with a shared, sharp strategic foundation. Boldness is Essential for Breaking Through the Noise: Healthcare, especially B2B, often defaults to playing it safe (“everything's blue”)—but in a crowded marketplace, standing out is non-negotiable. Mike advocates for boldness that is grounded in the brand's truth and strategically anchored. The result: unforgettable, not just noisy, marketing. Leadership's Role: Foster Honesty, Empathy, and Trust: Leadership sets the tone for creativity and trust. Mike urges CMOs and marketing leaders to lead with clarity and honesty—eschewing “BS” and toxic positivity for real, truthful dialogue about challenges and opportunities. Teams (and audiences) respond to authenticity; when leaders call things as they are and create space for truth, better work results. Resources and Contact: Want to connect with Mike or learn more about Verve's approach to strategic creativity? Visit

Once called a “unicorn” for her entrepreneurial approach, Vicki Apodaca is a seasoned marketer, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. Vicki has been a founding member of several tech startups (Phalanx, StellarFi, Joust, and Soply), and have also been through two exits (Joust acquired by ZenBusiness, Starship HSA acquired by Optum). Her passion in go-to-market and marketing strategy has led her to now be a Fractional CMO and Advisor across several startups worldwide. A native Burqueña, Vicki co-founded the New Mexico chapter of Techqueria – a Latinx in tech 501(3)(c) nonprofit – and NMClimate – a community for climate and energy-focused entrepreneurs. She lives in a cozy home with her partner and two Pekingese who run their house. Links NM Lottery Program FiatVentures Advisors site Phalanx site Techqueria New Mexic0 site Atomic 66 site Q Station site SpaceValley Foundation site CNM Ingenuity site nDigitize site Vicki on LinkedIn 

Welcome to The Power Lounge. In this episode, we explore a significant shift in healthcare marketing with our guest, Melissa Forrest Shackleford. With over twenty years of experience, Melissa has developed inclusive marketing strategies for organizations such as Optum and the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. She joins host Amy Vaughn to discuss how inclusive marketing can challenge stigmas in healthcare.Melissa details her journey and the impact of purpose-driven marketing in breaking down barriers and fostering meaningful consumer connections. The conversation covers the effectiveness of inclusive initiatives, the importance of language and accessibility, and provides practical strategies for obtaining executive support for inclusive marketing efforts. Additionally, Melissa highlights the tools and innovations that are driving change in the industry.This episode offers valuable insights and actionable advice for marketers, healthcare professionals, and anyone committed to making a difference. For further reading, Melissa's book, "Harnessing Purpose: A Marketer's Guide to Inspiring Connection," provides more comprehensive knowledge. Join us in building a more inclusive future.Chapters:00:00 - Introduction02:14 - "Evan North's Transformative Marketing Impact"04:57 - Understanding Consumer Stigma Insights08:18 - "Understanding Health Care Marketing Challenges"11:04 - Fighting Stigma in Lung Cancer Screening13:27 - Progress in Health Care Perception17:26 - Authenticity in Testimonies20:10 - Inclusive Marketing Awareness23:50 - Person-First Language Explained25:15 - Language Nuance and Impact30:56 - Delivery Service Boosted Sales33:29 - Reaching Diverse Audiences Economically37:26 - Champion Accessible UX Today41:44 - Purpose-Driven, Authentic Marketing44:25 - "Values-Driven Consumer Purchases"48:36 - Beyond Performative Inclusivity51:14 - Inclusive Audience Targeting Importance54:02 - Essential Inclusive Marketing Strategies55:25 - OutroQuotes:"Inclusive marketing means truly seeing and understanding each person, unlocking its transformative power."- Amy Vaughan"Shifting from stigma to understanding changes perceptions, saves lives, and forges genuine connections."- Melissa Forrest ShacklefordKey Takeaways:Breaking Stigma Starts with UnderstandingAuthentic Representation MattersAccessibility is Key to InclusivityLanguage as a Powerful ToolLeveraging Technology for PersonalizationInclusivity Equals GrowthConnect with Melissa Forrest Shackleford:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mfors/Check out Melissa's book: https://a.co/d/5HGTje6Connect with the host Amy Vaughan:LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/amypvaughanPodcast: https://www.togetherindigital.com/podcast/Learn more about Together Digital and consider joining the movement by visiting https://togetherindigital.comSupport the show

It feels like only yesterday that workforce challenges were the biggest problem facing the healthcare industry. While COVID-19-related staffing shortages may have declined, an inefficient workforce can still threaten health system operations and finances. Often, systems turn to staffing ratios or benchmarks to determine whether they need more cuts or more hires. However, systems need more than staffing ratios to make sure they have the right headcount and the right expertise in place to safely and effectively care for patients. The question is: if workforce benchmarks aren't enough, then what is? To answer that question, host Rachel (Rae) Woods invites Advisory Board nursing expert Ali Knight to unpack the state of the workforce five years after the peak of COVID-19. Later, Rae brings on Optum Advisory workforce management experts Sherilynn Quist and Anne Schmidt to break down their work in the field, addressing what they call the “blocking and tackling” of workforce efficiency within a hospital. Links: Optum Advisory: Healthcare consulting services [Webinar, May 18] Broaden your definition of the nursing care team Insights from Advisory Board's 2024 workforce benchmarks [Roundtable, Aug. 18-19] How to thrive in an evolving nursing landscape Ep. 205: Live from ViVE 2024: Four leaders on how technology is redefining clinical work Ep. 207: Nurses Week 2024: Build care teams, not assembly lines 2025 Advisory Board Summit - Carlsbad, CA Advisory Board Fellowship Advisory Board is a subsidiary of Optum. All Advisory Board research, expert perspectives, and recommendations remain independent. A transcript of this episode as well as more information and resources can be found on RadioAdvisory.advisory.com.

In this episode, Dr. Ken Cohen, Executive Director of Translational Research at Optum Health, discusses the impact of value-based care models on patient outcomes. He shares key findings from his recent research, including how Medicare Advantage patients in value-based arrangements receive superior care and how these benefits extend to traditional Medicare patients.

There is a lot happening in federal policy that may affect healthcare payment transformation and care delivery. But we've said it before: healthcare leaders can't afford to focus on fighting near-term fires at the expense of driving long-term success and sustainability. Amidst the uncertainty, it's more important than ever to push forward conversations about how we can structurally evolve our systems to align incentives to patient health. So, in this episode, we're talking about value-based care. Host Abby Burns invites Advisory Board expert Clare Wirth and Optum Advisory expert Erik Johnson to unpack the state of VBC in early 2025, and where they see it going next. They debate whether bundles can truly be considered “value-based care,” how specialty care will fit into the future VBC landscape, and which payer lines of business they have their eyes on. Links: VBC in 2025: What's now and what's next Inside Advocate Health's VBC approach that saved $136M How UNC Health made VBC sustainable in an academic health system The obstacles between health systems and VBC success Ep. 201: Value series: What does health system VBC adoption actually look like? Ep. 231: Big deal, little deal, or no deal? A 2024 health policy retrospective Value-based care landing page Enjoying this episode? Discover how Optum Advisory experts can help you design a VBC strategy to drive sustainable growth and profitability for your organization. Connect with one of our experts today. Advisory Board is a subsidiary of Optum. All Advisory Board research, expert perspectives, and recommendations remain independent. A transcript of this episode as well as more information and resources can be found on RadioAdvisory.advisory.com.

In this episode, Dr. Ken Cohen, Executive Director of Translational Research at Optum Health, discusses the impact of value-based care models on patient outcomes. He shares key findings from his recent research, including how Medicare Advantage patients in value-based arrangements receive superior care and how these benefits extend to traditional Medicare patients.

Partnerships between health systems and life sciences play a critical role in giving patients access to the best data, therapies, and technologies available in the market. However, these partnerships can be less fulfilling if both sides don't align on purpose and expectations. This week, host Rachel (Rae) Woods invites Advisory Board expert Fanta Cherif to break down the current state of health system and life sciences partnerships, share the spectrum of collaboration options, and the strategic middle ground that is often overlooked, but can serve as a lifeline in today's challenging economic landscape. Let us know what you think about today's discussion, or share your ideas for future episode topics by leaving us a voice message or emailing us. Links: Ep. 151: Making vendor-provider partnerships work Ep. 183: John Muir Health and Optum reflect on what makes their partnership work How to bridge the communication gap in vendor-provider partnerships Metrics that matter: How different stakeholders define value in healthcare Join Advisory Board experts for these upcoming philanthropy webinars: March 20, 2025 (1-2 p.m. ET/10-11 a.m. PT): What the future of health system growth means for philanthropy leaders Register here: What the future of health system growth means for philanthropy leaders April 1, 2025 (1-2 p.m. ET/10-11 a.m. PT): How market data can transform your philanthropy strategy Register here: Using market data to inform your philanthropy strategy A transcript of this episode as well as more information and resources can be found on RadioAdvisory.advisory.com.

Dr. Harlan Levine began his career practicing internal medicine but soon moved into business leadership roles at national healthcare organizations to help improve the dysfunction with payer-provider relationships that he experienced firsthand as a physician.At United Health Group, Dr. Levine joined as clinical lead of the team that launched Optum, where he subsequently served as chief medical officer for more than six years. He also led the health management practice at Towers Watson and served as executive vice president of comprehensive health solutions at WellPoint, among other roles.In 2013, Dr. Levine joined City of Hope, one of the country's largest and most advanced cancer research and treatment organizations. City of Hope's uniquely integrated model spans cancer care, research and development, academics and training, and a broad philanthropy program that powers its work. City of Hope's growing national system includes its Los Angeles campus, a network of clinical care locations across Southern California, a new cancer center in Orange County, California, and cancer treatment centers and outpatient facilities in the Atlanta, Chicago and Phoenix areas.In addition to currently serving as president of health innovation and policy at City of Hope, Dr. Levine is also chair of the board of AccessHope. A spinout from City of Hope, AccessHope partners with the nation's most prestigious cancer research centers to help make leading-edge cancer care available to all, regardless of geographical location.Dr. Levine joined Keith Figlioli for the second episode of a Healthcare is Hard series exploring opportunities in oncology. Some of the topics they discussed include:Community practice vs. academic medical centers. Delivering personalized care and giving patients access to cutting-edge treatment is equally important, yet historically difficult to balance. In the first episode of this series, Dr. Stephen Schleicher from Tennessee Oncology shared how one of the nation's most successful community oncology practices is tackling the challenge. In this episode, Dr. Levine discussed City of Hope's model of putting academic research at the center and connecting it with community practices. He described how City of Hope is changing the direction of cancer care – not just delivering it – by giving patients faster access to emerging science.Defining value in oncology. Dr. Levine calls himself an outlier when it comes to value-based care in oncology because he thinks the industry missed a critical first step – defining what the term means. In most circumstances, discussions around value are centered around reducing cost. But Dr. Levine points out that a cancer patient defines value very differently. They define it as survival. They think about whether or not they returned to normal functionality in normal life, and what their experience was through the entire treatment process. He says the industry needs to recognize and customize models for these unique aspects of cancer care before the term VBC should be used in oncology.AI in oncology. Dr. Levine shared his outlook for the many ways artificial intelligence will change oncology – from drug discovery to care delivery. He believes AI will completely disrupt the approach to cancer care and that the revolution will happen quickly – not in seven to 10 years, but in three to five. He talked about the ways he sees AI changing how doctors deliver care, and why he's even more optimistic about its ability to accelerate research.To hear Dr. Levine and Keith discuss these topics and more, listen to this episode of Healthcare is Hard: A Podcast for Insiders.

Host: David Rosenblum, MD Guest: Phillip Kim, MD Date: January 24, 2025 Time: 6:30 AM Episode Summary: In this episode of the PainExam Podcast, Dr. David Rosenblum engages with Dr. Phillip Kim to discuss the Federation Pain Care Access, a newly formed organization advocating for improved access to interventional pain treatments. The episode delves into the challenges posed by restrictive insurance coverage policies and the collaborative efforts needed to address these issues effectively. Key Discussion Points: -Introduction to Federation Pain Care Access: A new entity focused on advocating for emergent and standard care in interventional pain treatments, aiming to enhance access through advocacy and legislative solutions. - Impact of Restrictive Policies: Dr. Kim highlights how insurance carriers like Evicor, AIM, and Optum impose restrictive coverage policies that harm patients and practitioners, particularly amid the ongoing opioid epidemic.AIM, Optum and Evicore are not insurance carriers. these are separate entities which oversee utilization management and prior auth requests for insurance carriers (HMO, TPA's etc) e g. BCBS plans, UHS etc. Prior Authorization Challenges: Discussion on the AMA 2022 Prior Authorization Physician Survey, which indicates significant negative impacts on patient care due to prior authorization processes. - Case Studies: Dr. Kim shares specific cases where patients faced harm due to denied claims, including issues related to medical cannabis and necessary medical equipment.   - Collaboration with Medical Societies: The Federation works alongside various pain societies and stakeholders to address common concerns and push for better coverage policies. - Future Goals Plans for meetings with CMS and Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) regarding specific treatments like SI joint radiofrequency ablation, aiming to improve coverage and access.   Fundraising and Outreach: The Federation seeks to grow its membership and funding through outreach to allied health professionals and patient care groups while launching a media campaign to raise awareness of patient struggles  Legal and Advocacy Efforts: Emphasis on the need for legal considerations in advocacy efforts and the importance of public support in achieving the Federation's goals. - The No Pain Act: Discussion on recent legislation aimed at expanding access to non-opioid treatments and alternatives for chronic pain management. Guest Bio: Phillip Kim, MD is a leading advocate for pain care access and a founding member of the Federation Pain Care Access. He brings extensive experience in managing chronic pain patients and navigating healthcare policies. Resources  Federation Pain Care Access Website:  https://www.painfed.org # board Listeners are encouraged to support the Federation Pain Care Access by visiting their website to learn more about their initiatives and consider contributing to help advance their mission. Join Dr. Rosenblum and Dr. Kim in this vital conversation about the ongoing efforts to improve pain care access and the importance of collaboration in overcoming the challenges faced by patients and healthcare providers.   Long island based anesthesiologist, David Rosenblum, MD, is one of the first interventional pain physicians in the country to integrate ultrasound guidance into his pain practice. Since 2007, he has been an international leader in the treatment of chronic pain. He has helped countless of patients suffering from back, neck, knee, shoulder, hip joint pain and has been at the forefront of regenerative pain medicine, minimally invasive pain therapies and medical education.  Patients can schedule a consultation by going to  www.AABPpain.com or calling: Brooklyn Office 718 436 7246 Garden City Office 516 482 7246

Michael welcomes Sandy Rolfe, Chair of the WEDI Genomics Workgroup and Clinical Lead for the InterQual Molecular Diagnostics and Durable Medical Equipment at Optum. The two discuss the ever evolving state of Genomics research, data privacy and security, and how data interoperability and standards can aid in care and patient satisfaction. WEDI members are invited to attend a special Genomics workgroup event, Exploring Genomic Data Exchange: A Deep Dive into FHIR Integration and Interoperability, Feb 27 on Zoom, exclusive for WEDI members. Visit www.wedi.org to sign up.

Host: David Rosenblum, MD Guest: Phillip Kim, MD Date: January 24, 2025 Time: 6:30 AM Episode Summary: In this episode of the PainExam Podcast, Dr. David Rosenblum engages with Dr. Phillip Kim to discuss the Federation Pain Care Access, a newly formed organization advocating for improved access to interventional pain treatments. The episode delves into the challenges posed by restrictive insurance coverage policies and the collaborative efforts needed to address these issues effectively. Key Discussion Points: -Introduction to Federation Pain Care Access: A new entity focused on advocating for emergent and standard care in interventional pain treatments, aiming to enhance access through advocacy and legislative solutions. - Impact of Restrictive Policies: Dr. Kim highlights how insurance carriers like Evicor, AIM, and Optum impose restrictive coverage policies that harm patients and practitioners, particularly amid the ongoing opioid epidemic. AIM, Optum and Evicore are not insurance carriers. these are separate entities which oversee utilization management and prior auth requests for insurance carriers (HMO, TPA's etc) e g. BCBS plans, UHS etc. Prior Authorization Challenges: Discussion on the AMA 2022 Prior Authorization Physician Survey, which indicates significant negative impacts on patient care due to prior authorization processes. - Case Studies: Dr. Kim shares specific cases where patients faced harm due to denied claims, including issues related to medical cannabis and necessary medical equipment.   - Collaboration with Medical Societies: The Federation works alongside various pain societies and stakeholders to address common concerns and push for better coverage policies. - Future Goals Plans for meetings with CMS and Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) regarding specific treatments like SI joint radiofrequency ablation, aiming to improve coverage and access.   Fundraising and Outreach: The Federation seeks to grow its membership and funding through outreach to allied health professionals and patient care groups while launching a media campaign to raise awareness of patient struggles  Legal and Advocacy Efforts: Emphasis on the need for legal considerations in advocacy efforts and the importance of public support in achieving the Federation's goals. - The No Pain Act: Discussion on recent legislation aimed at expanding access to non-opioid treatments and alternatives for chronic pain management. Guest Bio: Phillip Kim, MD is a leading advocate for pain care access and a founding member of the Federation Pain Care Access. He brings extensive experience in managing chronic pain patients and navigating healthcare policies. Resources  Federation Pain Care Access Website:  https://www.painfed.org # board Listeners are encouraged to support the Federation Pain Care Access by visiting their website to learn more about their initiatives and consider contributing to help advance their mission. Join Dr. Rosenblum and Dr. Kim in this vital conversation about the ongoing efforts to improve pain care access and the importance of collaboration in overcoming the challenges faced by patients and healthcare providers.   Long island based anesthesiologist, David Rosenblum, MD, is one of the first interventional pain physicians in the country to integrate ultrasound guidance into his pain practice. Since 2007, he has been an international leader in the treatment of chronic pain. He has helped countless of patients suffering from back, neck, knee, shoulder, hip joint pain and has been at the forefront of regenerative pain medicine, minimally invasive pain therapies and medical education.  Patients can schedule a consultation by going to  www.AABPpain.com or calling: Brooklyn Office 718 436 7246 Garden City Office 516 482 7246

Host: David Rosenblum, MD Guest: Phillip Kim, MD Date: January 24, 2025 Time: 6:30 AM Episode Summary: In this episode of the PainExam Podcast, Dr. David Rosenblum engages with Dr. Phillip Kim to discuss the Federation Pain Care Access, a newly formed organization advocating for improved access to interventional pain treatments. The episode delves into the challenges posed by restrictive insurance coverage policies and the collaborative efforts needed to address these issues effectively. Key Discussion Points: -Introduction to Federation Pain Care Access: A new entity focused on advocating for emergent and standard care in interventional pain treatments, aiming to enhance access through advocacy and legislative solutions. - Impact of Restrictive Policies: Dr. Kim highlights how insurance carriers like Evicor, AIM, and Optum impose restrictive coverage policies that harm patients and practitioners, particularly amid the ongoing opioid epidemic. AIM, Optum and Evicore are not insurance carriers. these are separate entities which oversee utilization management and prior auth requests for insurance carriers (HMO, TPA's etc) e g. BCBS plans, UHS etc. Prior Authorization Challenges: Discussion on the AMA 2022 Prior Authorization Physician Survey, which indicates significant negative impacts on patient care due to prior authorization processes. - Case Studies: Dr. Kim shares specific cases where patients faced harm due to denied claims, including issues related to medical cannabis and necessary medical equipment.   - Collaboration with Medical Societies: The Federation works alongside various pain societies and stakeholders to address common concerns and push for better coverage policies. - Future Goals Plans for meetings with CMS and Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) regarding specific treatments like SI joint radiofrequency ablation, aiming to improve coverage and access.   Fundraising and Outreach: The Federation seeks to grow its membership and funding through outreach to allied health professionals and patient care groups while launching a media campaign to raise awareness of patient struggles  Legal and Advocacy Efforts: Emphasis on the need for legal considerations in advocacy efforts and the importance of public support in achieving the Federation's goals. - The No Pain Act: Discussion on recent legislation aimed at expanding access to non-opioid treatments and alternatives for chronic pain management. Guest Bio: Phillip Kim, MD is a leading advocate for pain care access and a founding member of the Federation Pain Care Access. He brings extensive experience in managing chronic pain patients and navigating healthcare policies. Resources  Federation Pain Care Access Website:  https://www.painfed.org # board Listeners are encouraged to support the Federation Pain Care Access by visiting their website to learn more about their initiatives and consider contributing to help advance their mission. Join Dr. Rosenblum and Dr. Kim in this vital conversation about the ongoing efforts to improve pain care access and the importance of collaboration in overcoming the challenges faced by patients and healthcare providers.   Long island based anesthesiologist, David Rosenblum, MD, is one of the first interventional pain physicians in the country to integrate ultrasound guidance into his pain practice. Since 2007, he has been an international leader in the treatment of chronic pain. He has helped countless of patients suffering from back, neck, knee, shoulder, hip joint pain and has been at the forefront of regenerative pain medicine, minimally invasive pain therapies and medical education.  Patients can schedule a consultation by going to  www.AABPpain.com or calling: Brooklyn Office 718 436 7246 Garden City Office 516 482 7246

In this conversation, Dr. David Carmouche discusses the critical transition from fee-for-service to value-based care in the healthcare industry, emphasizing the role of AI in enhancing primary care and improving patient outcomes. He highlights the financial pressures on health systems and the importance of aligning incentives to achieve sustainability. The discussion also covers the innovative solutions offered by Lumeris and the transformative potential of AI in automating care processes and improving patient engagement. Finally, Dr. Carmouche addresses the need for regulatory guardrails as AI becomes more integrated into healthcare delivery.In this episode , they discuss:The shift from fee-for-service to value-based care is essential for financial sustainability.AI is poised to transform primary care delivery and patient engagement.Healthcare costs have been deemed unsustainable for decades, necessitating change.Aligning incentives is crucial for improving patient outcomes in healthcare.Lumeris has a decade-long history of partnering with health systems for value-based care.AI can automate and standardize care processes, enhancing efficiency.Data availability and interoperability are key to successful value-based care models.Generative AI can proactively engage patients and improve care delivery.Training clinicians to effectively use AI is vital for its successful integration.Regulatory guardrails will be necessary as AI becomes more prevalent in healthcare.A little about Dr David Carmouche: David Carmouche, MD, is the Executive Vice President & Chief Clinical Transformation Officer at Lumeris. Dr. Carmouche is a visionary leader in transformational healthcare delivery, with a unique blend of provider, payer, retail, and integrated delivery network leadership experience.Prior to joining Lumeris, Dr. Carmouche served as Walmart's Senior Vice President of Healthcare Delivery, where he led the fleet of Walmart Health centers, Walmart Health Virtual Care, a value-based care partnership with Optum, and Walmart's work to address Social Determinants of Health. Dr. Carmouche has also held significant leadership roles with Ochsner Health, the largest nonprofit academic healthcare system in the Gulf South, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana, where he introduced the company's first value-based care contracts. Earlier in his career, he built and led a multidisciplinary internal medicine and preventive cardiology practice.Dr. Carmouche attended Tulane University and LSU Medical School in New Orleans. Board-certified in Internal Medicine, he completed his residency at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he later served as Chief Resident. He serves as President of the Board of the Consortium for Southeastern Healthcare Quality and on the advisory board at Stellar Health. He has served on the board of the National Association of Accountable Care Organizations.

AP correspondent Haya Panjwani reports on a Wisconsin couple suing Walgreens and Optum Rx.

Back in December, we discussed why leaders should re-envision their approach to digital change management. But to truly implement digital change, health systems must understand their organization's success (or failure) to date. However, assessing digital progress is not a simple task. While models exist that measure digital maturity in other industries, there is a serious lack of tools to measure progress in the healthcare field—which is why we made our own. This week, host Rachel (Rae) Woods invites John League, Advisory Board digital health expert, and K. R. Prabha, Optum's Vice President of Strategy, Growth and Innovation to define what digital maturity for health systems looks like and unpack why so many organizations are stalled at merely “being” digital. Together, they introduce a new tool they've designed to help health systems assess their own digital maturity. For an on-the-ground perspective, Rae invites Dr. David Ingham, Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Allina Health, to discuss how Allina Health leveraged this tool to assess their progress and prioritize next steps on their digital journey. Links: Understand the digital maturity of your health system Ep. 233: Your digital strategy needs more than “change management” Optum Advisory: Healthcare consulting services Allina Health Care & Medical Services In MN & Western WI Get in touch with us [Webinar, 2/19] Imaging market trends in 2025 Advisory Board is a subsidiary of Optum. All Advisory Board research, expert perspectives, and recommendations remain independent. A transcript of this episode as well as more information and resources can be found on RadioAdvisory.advisory.com.

Do you struggle with depression, anxiety, or mood disorders? Professional care is more affordable than you think if you're covered by Optum. That's because Mission Connection accepts Optum insurance plans. Call them at (866) 833-1822 or visit https://missionconnectionhealthcare.com/optum-insurance/ to learn more. Mission Connection City: San Juan Capistrano Address: 30310 Rancho Viejo Rd. Website: https://missionconnectionhealthcare.com/

Mental health services are more affordable than ever in Virginia. That's because Mission Connection accepts Optum health insurance plans for its treatments. Call them at (866) 833-1822 or visit https://missionconnectionhealthcare.com/optum-insurance/ to learn more about your coverage options. Mission Connection City: San Juan Capistrano Address: 30310 Rancho Viejo Rd. Website: https://missionconnectionhealthcare.com/

In this episode, Scott Becker and Jakob Emerson, Associate News Director at Becker's Healthcare, explore UnitedHealth Group's 2024 earnings report, the challenges faced in Medicare Advantage, and the strategic shifts at Optum, including its move away from urgent care.

Mental healthcare just got more affordable for Californians thanks to Mission Connection. Call the treatment center at (866) 833-1822 or visit https://missionconnectionhealthcare.com/optum-insurance/ to learn more about the services it offers that are covered by Optum insurance plans. Mission Connection City: San Juan Capistrano Address: 30310 Rancho Viejo Rd. Website: https://missionconnectionhealthcare.com/

Want to find out more about what you can get with your Optum coverage in California? Mission Prep (866-698-2188) has prepared a handy guide to help your teenage child get the mental health care they need. Find out more at: https://missionprephealthcare.com/optum-insurance/ Mission Prep City: San Juan Capistrano Address: 30310 Rancho Viejo Rd. Website: https://missionprephealthcare.com/

David Toung and Matt Montefusco break down UnitedHealth's (UNH) earnings. David says rising medical and prescription costs are pressuring EPS and revenue. However, he thinks the company is building a long-term growth model. Matt highlights elective procedures rising and the potential headwinds of the Trump administration cutting medical spending. He says they should focus more on their Optum segment than the insurance unit. ======== Schwab Network ======== Empowering every investor and trader, every market day. Subscribe to the Market Minute newsletter - https://schwabnetwork.com/subscribe Download the iOS app - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/schwab-network/id1460719185 Download the Amazon Fire Tv App - https://www.amazon.com/TD-Ameritrade-Network/dp/B07KRD76C7 Watch on Sling - https://watch.sling.com/1/asset/191928615bd8d47686f94682aefaa007/watch Watch on Vizio - https://www.vizio.com/en/watchfreeplus-explore Watch on DistroTV - https://www.distro.tv/live/schwab-network/ Follow us on X – https://twitter.com/schwabnetwork Follow us on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/schwabnetwork Follow us on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/schwab-network/ About Schwab Network - https://schwabnetwork.com/about

When it comes to leadership, emotional intelligence often gets overlooked. For years, the American work culture has emphasized suppressing emotions in the workplace. But times are changing.Today, emotional intelligence is as crucial as any leadership skill–if not the most essential. Our guest is here to show us why it matters and how to manage our emotions effectively.Meet Roberta Fernandez. Roberta is a professional development consultant specializing in emotional intelligence and organizational cultural change. She holds a Master Practitioner certification in NLP and is a Board-certified Hypnotherapist, making her uniquely skilled in understanding human behavior. Roberta's past clients form a diverse portfolio, including Kemps, Sam's Club, Target, Optum, Pentair, governments, academic institutions, and private small businesses.In this episode, Roberta and I explore the transformative power of emotional intelligence in the workplace. Roberta shares how emotions influence behavior and introduces practical tools for managing team dynamics effectively.With practical tips on staying calm in heated situations, navigating tough conversations, and recognizing workplace emotions, this episode is packed with insights to improve your leadership and collaboration skills.Join the conversation now!Get FREE mini-episode guides with the big idea from the week's episode delivered to your inbox when you subscribe to my weekly email.Conversation Topics(00:00) Introduction(01:56) What is emotional intelligence?(04:06) Understanding and addressing your emotions(07:28) Why emotional awareness is critical for managers(11:32) The FARE framework (Focus, Associate, Repeat, and Expect) explained(16:45) Tips for navigating the emotions that come with change(19:21) How to manage emotions during heated conversations(25:19) Why do people act based on their beliefs(30:19) A great manager Roberta has worked for(31:16) Keep up with Roberta(31:22) [Extended Episode Only] How to proactively prevent a conversation from getting emotional(34:28) [Extended Episode Only] Using the Frame Tool for taking emotions out of team problem-solvingAdditional Resources:- Get the extended episode by Joining The Modern Manager Podcast+ Community for just $15 per month- Read the full transcript here- Follow me on Instagram here - Visit my website for more here- Upskill your team here- Subscribe to my YouTube Channel hereKeep up with Roberta Fernandez- Follow Roberta on LinkedIn and Instagram- Visit her website for more information hereFREE Emotional Intelligence Assessment and the Frame ToolRoberta is providing members of Podcast+ with access to her emotional intelligence assessment as well as “the frame” tool, which she explains in the extended episode.To get this guest bonus and many other member benefits, become a member of The Modern Manager Podcast+ Community.---------------------The Modern Manager is a leadership podcast for rockstar managers who want to create a working environment where people thrive, and great work gets done.Follow The Modern Manager on your favorite podcast platform so you won't miss an episode!

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Welcome to the latest episode of the Leaders in Tech podcast! In this episode, host David Manel interviews Reshma Ombase, a Senior Director in Technology Product Management at Optum, part of UnitedHealth Group. Reshma shares her journey of resilience, adaptability, and leadership—an inspiring story for anyone striving to make an impact in the tech industry. Her story is one of perseverance, seizing opportunities, and breaking barriers. Here's a breakdown of the key takeaways from the conversation.Here's more about Reshma Ombase:“I'm an experienced leader and strategist with a proven track record of successfully managing teams and product solutions that have delivered exceptional results. I currently oversee the Directed Spend Product portfolio for the Optum Financial Consumer Payments business and have the privilege to lead a group of talented people, who strive to build consumer centric products, capabilities, and experiences.I'm expert in assessing market opportunities, competitor analysis, drafting product vision/roadmap, system analysis, setting up AGILE development processes, product management, portfolio management, business process engineering, and software development life cycle management. Including system design, development, testing and implementation of software applications. Adept at building long range plans, tracking plan to budget, delivery, and measuring ROI/NPS.I've worn many hats in my career -- programmer, business analyst, system analyst, SME, agile product owner, product manager, portfolio manager, team lead, and business technology platform lead! Which has helped develop my ability to manage a vast and complex business/product/technology portfolio.To me commitment is crucial and execution is key in everything I do!”Company description: Optum is a health services and innovation company on a mission to help people live healthier lives and to help make the health system work better for everyone.

American healthcare is well known for its extreme cost and worst outcomes among industrialized (such as the 38 OECD member) countries, and beyond that to be remarkably opaque. The high cost of prescription drugs contributes, and little has been done to change that except for the government passing the Affordable Insulin Now Act at the end of 2022, enacted in 2023. But in January 2022 Mark Cuban launched Cost Plus Drugs that has transformed how many Americans can get their prescriptions filled at a fraction of the prevailing prices, bypassing pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) that control 80% of US prescriptions. That was just the beginning of a path of creative destruction (disruptive innovation, after Schumpeter) of many key components American healthcare that Cuban is leading, with Cost Plus Marketplace, Cost Plus Wellness and much more to come. He certainly qualifies as a master disrupter: “someone who is a leader in innovation and is not afraid to challenge the status quo.” Below is a video clip from our conversation dealing with insurance companies. Full videos of all Ground Truths podcasts can be seen on YouTube here. The current one is here. If you like the YouTube format, please subscribe! The audios are also available on Apple and Spotify.Transcript with External links to Audio (00:07):Hello, it's Eric Topol with Ground Truths, and I have our special phenomenal guest today, Mark Cuban, who I think you know him from his tech world contributions and Dallas Mavericks, and the last few years he's been shaking up healthcare with Cost Plus Drugs. So Mark, welcome.Mark Cuban (00:25):Thanks for having me, Eric.Eric Topol (00:27):Yeah, I mean, what you're doing, you've become a hero to millions of Americans getting them their medications at a fraction of the cost they're used to. And you are really challenging the PBM industry, which I've delved into more than ever, just in prep for our conversation. It's just amazing what this group of companies, namely the three big three CVS Caremark, Optum of UnitedHealth and Express Scripts of Cigna with a market of almost $600 billion this year, what they're doing, how can they get away with all this stuff?Inner Workings of Pharmacy Benefit ManagersMark Cuban (01:03):I mean, they're just doing business. I really don't blame them. I blame the people who contract with them. All the companies, particularly the bigger companies, the self-insured companies, where the CEO really doesn't have an understanding of their healthcare or pharmacy benefits. And so, the big PBMs paid them rebates, which they think is great if you're a CEO, when in reality it's really just a loan against the money spent by your sickest employees, and they just don't understand that. So a big part of my time these days is going to CEOs and sitting with them and explaining to them that you're getting ripped off on both your pharmacy and your healthcare side.Eric Topol (01:47):Yeah, it's amazing to me the many ways that they get away with this. I mean, they make companies sign NDAs. They're addicted to rebates. They have all sorts of ways a channel of funds to themselves. I mean, all the things you could think of whereby they even have these GPOs. Each of these companies has a group purchasing organization (I summarized in the Table below).Mark Cuban (02:12):Yeah, which gives them, it's crazy because with those GPOs. The GPO does the deal with the pharmacy manufacturer. Then the GPO also does the deal with the PBM, and then the PBM goes to the self-insured employer in particular and says, hey, we're going to pass through all the rebates. But what they don't say is they've already skimmed off 5%, 10%, 20% or more off the top through their GPO. But that's not even the worst of it. That's just money, right? I mean, that's important, but I mean, even the biggest companies rarely own their own claims data.Mark Cuban (02:45):Now think about what that means. It means you can't get smarter about the wellness of your employees and their families. You want to figure out the best way to do GLP-1s and figure out how to reduce diabetes, whatever it may be. You don't have that claims data. And then they don't allow the companies to control their own formularies. So we've seen Humira biosimilars come out and the big PBMs have done their own version of the biosimilar where we have a product called Yusimry, which is only $594 a month, which is cheaper than the cheapest biosimilar that the big three are selling. And so, you would think in a normal relationship, they would want to bring on this new product to help the employer. No, they won't do it. If the employer asks, can I just add Cost Plus Drugs to my network? They'll say no, every single time.Mark Cuban (03:45):Their job is not to save the employer money, particularly after they've given a rebate. Because once they give that loan, that rebate to the employer, they need to get that money back. It's not a gift. It's a loan and they need to have the rebates, and we don't do rebates with them at all. And I can go down the list. They don't control the formula. They don't control, you mentioned the NDAs. They can't talk to manufacturers, so they can't go to Novo or to Lilly and say, let's put together a GLP-1 wellness program. All these different things that just are common sense. It's not happening. And so, the good news is when I walk into these companies that self-insured and talk to the CEO or CFO, I'm not asking them to do something that's not in their best interest or not in the best interest of the lives they cover. I'm saying, we can save you money and you can improve the wellness of your employees and their families. Where's the downside?Eric Topol (04:40):Oh, yeah. Yeah. And the reason they can't see the claims is because of the privacy issues?Mark Cuban (04:46):No, no. That's just a business decision in the contract that the PBMs have made. You can go and ask. I mean, you have every right to your own claims. You don't need to have it personally identified. You want to find out how many people have GLP-1s or what are the trends, or God forbid there's another Purdue Pharma thing going on, and someone prescribing lots of opioids. You want to be able to see those things, but they won't do it. And that's only on the sponsor side. It's almost as bad if not worse on the manufacturer side.Eric Topol (05:20):Oh, yeah. Well, some of the work of PBMs that you've been talking about were well chronicled in the New York Times, a couple of major articles by Reed Abelson and Rebecca Robbins: The Opaque Industry Secretly Inflating Prices for Prescription Drugs and The Powerful Companies Driving Local Drugstores Out of Business. We'll link those because I think some people are not aware of all the things that are going on in the background.Mark Cuban (05:39):You see in their study and what they reported on the big PBMs, it's crazy the way it works. And literally if there was transparency, like Cost Plus offers, the cost of medications across the country could come down 20%, 30% or more.Cost Plus DrugsEric Topol (05:55):Oh, I mean, it is amazing, really. And now let's get into Cost Plus. I know that a radiologist, Alex Oshmyansky contacted you with a cold email a little over three years ago, and you formed Cost Plus Drugs on the basis of that, right?Mark Cuban (06:12):Yep, that's exactly what happened.Eric Topol (06:15):I give you credit for responding to cold emails and coming up with a brilliant idea with this and getting behind it and putting your name behind it. And what you've done, so you started out with something like 110 generics and now you're up well over 1,200 or 2,500 or something like that?Mark Cuban (06:30):And adding brands. And so, started with 111. Now we're around 2,500 and trying to grow it every single day. And not only that, just to give people an overview. When you go to www.costplusdrugs.com and you put in the name of your medication, let's just say it's tadalafil, and if it comes up. In this case, it will. It'll show you our actual cost, and then we just mark it up 15%. It's the same markup for everybody, and if you want it, we'll have a pharmacist check it. And so, that's a $5 fee. And then if you want ship to mail order, it's $5 for shipping. And if you want to use our pharmacy network, then we can connect you there and you can just pick it up at a local pharmacy.Eric Topol (07:10):Yeah, no, it's transparency. We don't have a lot of that in healthcare in America, right?Mark Cuban (07:15):No. And literally, Eric, the smartest thing that we did, and we didn't expect this, it's always the law of unintended consequences. The smartest thing we did was publish our entire price list because that allowed any company, any sponsor, CMS, researchers to compare our prices to what others were already paying. And we've seen studies come out saying, for this X number of urology drugs, CMS would save $3.6 billion a year. For this number of heart drugs at this amount per year, for chemotherapy drugs or MS drugs this amount. And so, it's really brought attention to the fact that for what PBMs call specialty drugs, whether there's nothing special about them, we can save people a lot of money.Eric Topol (08:01):It's phenomenal. As a cardiologist, I looked up a couple of the drugs that I'm most frequently prescribed, just like Rosuvastatin what went down from $134 to $5.67 cents or Valsartan it went down from $69 to $7.40 cents. But of course, there's some that are much more dramatic, like as you mentioned, whether it's drugs for multiple sclerosis, the prostate cancer. I mean, some of these are just thousands and thousands of dollars per month that are saved, brought down to levels that you wouldn't think would even be conceivable. And this has been zero marketing, right?Mark Cuban (08:42):Yeah, none. It's all been word of mouth and my big mouth, of course. Going out there and doing interviews like this and going to major media, but it's amazing. We get emails and letters and people coming up to us almost single day saying, you saved my grandma's life. You saved my life. We weren't going to be able to afford our imatinib or our MS medication. And it went from being quoted $2,000 a month to $33 a month. It's just insane things like that that are still happening.Eric Topol (09:11):Well, this is certainly one of the biggest shakeups to occur in US healthcare in years. And what you've done in three years is just extraordinary. This healthcare in this country is with its over 4 trillion, pushing $5 trillion a year of expenditure.[New CMS report this week pegs the number at $4.867 trillion for 2023]Mark Cuban (09:30):It's interesting. I think it's really fixable. This has been the easiest industry to the disrupt I've ever been involved in. And it's not even close because all it took was transparency and not jacking up margins to market. We choose to use a fixed margin markup. Some choose to price to market, the Martin Shkreli approach, if you will. And just by being transparent, we've had an impact. And the other side of it is, it's the same concept on the healthcare side. Transparency helps, but to go a little field of pharmacy if you want. The insane part, and this applies to care and pharmacy, whatever plan we have, whether it's for health or whether it's for pharmaceuticals, there's typically a deductible, typically a copay, and typically a co-insurance.Insurance CompaniesMark Cuban (10:20):The crazy part of all that is that people taking the default risk, the credit risk are the providers. It's you, it's the hospital, it's the clinics that you work for. Which makes no sense whatsoever that the decisions that you or I make for our personal insurance or for the companies we run, or if we work for the government, what we do with Medicare or Medicare Advantage, the decisions we all make impacts the viability of providers starting with the biggest hospital systems. And so, as a result, they become subprime lenders without a car or a house to go after if they can't collect. And so, now you see a bunch of people, particularly those under the ACA with the $9,000, the bronze plans or $18,000 out-of-pocket limits go into debt, significant medical debt. And it's unfortunate. We look at the people who are facing these problems and think, well, it must be the insurance companies.Mark Cuban (11:23):It's actually not even the insurance companies. It's the overall design of the system. But underneath that, it's still whoever picks the insurance companies and sets plans that allow those deductibles, that's the core of the problem. And until we get to a system where the providers aren't responsible for the credit for defaults and dealing with all that credit risk, it's almost going to be impossible to change. Because when you see stories like we've all seen in news of a big healthcare, a BUCA healthcare (Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS), UnitedHealth, Cigna, and Aetna/CVS) plan with all the pre-authorizations and denials, typically they're not even taking the insurance risk. They're acting as the TPA (third party administrator) as the claims processor effectively for whoever hired them. And it goes back again, just like I talked about before. And as long as CMS hires or allows or accepts these BUCAs with these plans for Medicare for the ACA (Affordable care Act), whatever it may be, it's not going to work. As long as self-insured employers and the 50 million lives they cover hire these BUCAs to act as the TPAs, not as insurance companies and give them leeway on what to approve and what to authorize and what not to authorize. The system's going to be a mess, and that's where we are today.Academic Health System PartnershipsEric Topol (12:41):Yeah. Well, you've been talking of course to employers and enlightening them, and you're also enlightening the public, of course. That's why you have millions of people that are saving their cost of medications, but recently you struck a partnership with Penn Medicine. That's amazing. So is that your first academic health system that you approached?Cost Plus MarketplaceMark Cuban (13:00):I don't know if it was the first we approached, but it was certainly one of the biggest that we signed. We've got Cost Plus Marketplace (CPM) where we make everything from injectables to you name it, anything a hospital might buy. But again, at a finite markup, we make eight and a half percent I think when it's all said and done. And that saves hospital systems millions of dollars a year.Eric Topol (13:24):Yeah. So that's a big change in the way you're proceeding because what it was just pills that you were buying from the pharma companies, now you're actually going to make injectables and you're going to have a manufacturing capability. Is that already up and going?Mark Cuban (13:39):That's all up and going as of March. We're taking sterile injectables that are on the shortage list, generic and manufacturing them in Dallas using a whole robotics manufacturing plant that really Alex created. He's the rocket scientist behind it. And we're limited in capacity now, we're limited about 2 million vials, but we'll sell those to Cost Plus Marketplace, and we'll also sell those direct. So Cost Plus Marketplace isn't just the things we manufacture. It's a wide variety of products that hospitals buy that we then have a minimal markup, and then for the stuff we manufacture, we'll sell those to direct to like CHS was our first customer.Eric Topol (14:20):Yeah, that's a big expansion from going from the pills to this. Wow.Mark Cuban (14:24):It's a big, big expansion, but it goes to the heart of being transparent and not being greedy, selling on a markup. And ourselves as a company, being able to remain lean and mean. The only way we can sell at such a low markup. We have 20 employees on the Cost Plus side and 40 employees involved with the factories, and that's it.Eric Topol (14:46):Wow. So with respect to, you had this phenomenal article and interview with WIRED Magazine just this past week. I know Lauren Goode interviewed you, and she said, Mark, is this really altruistic and I love your response. You said, “how much f*****g money do I need? I'm not trying to land on Mars.” And then you said, “at this point in my life, it's just like more money, or f**k up the healthcare industry.” This was the greatest, Mark. I mean, I got to tell you, it was really something.Mark Cuban (15:18):Yeah.Eric Topol (15:19):Well, in speaking of that, of course, the allusion to a person we know well, Elon. He posted on X/Twitter in recent days , I think just three or four days ago, shouldn't the American people be getting their money's worth? About this high healthcare administration costs where the US is completely away from any other OECD country. And as you and I know, we have the worst outcomes and the most costs of all the rich countries in the world. There's just nothing new here. Maybe it's new to him, but you had a fabulous response on both X and Bluesky where you went over all these things point by point. And of course, the whole efforts that you've been working on now for three years. You also mentioned something that was really interesting that I didn't know about were these ERISA lawsuits[Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) of 1974.] Can you tell us about that?ERISA LawsuitsMark Cuban (16:13):Yeah, that's a great question, Eric. So for self-insured companies in particular, we have a fiduciary responsibility on a wellness and on a financial basis to offer the members, your employees and their families the best outcomes at the best price. Now, you can't guarantee best outcomes, but you have to be able to explain the choices you made. You don't have to pick the cheapest, but again, you have to be able to explain why you made the choices that you did. And because a lot of companies have been doing, just like we discussed earlier, doing deals on the pharmacy side with just these big PBMs, without accounting for best practices, best price, best outcomes, a couple companies got sued. Johnson and Johnson and Wells Fargo were the first to get sued. And I think that's just the beginning. That's just the writing on the wall. I think they'll lose because they just dealt with the big pharmacy PBMs. And I think that's one of the reasons why we're so busy at Cost Plus and why I'm so busy because we're having conversation after conversation with companies and plenty of enough lawyers for that matter who want to see a price list and be able to compare what they're paying to what we sell for to see if they're truly living up to that responsibility.Eric Topol (17:28):Yeah, no, that's a really important thing that's going on right now that I think a lot of people don't know about. Now, the government of the US think because it's the only government of any rich country in the world, if not any country that doesn't negotiate prices, i.e., CMS or whatever. And only with the recent work of insulin, which is a single one drug, was there reduction of price. And of course, it's years before we'll see other drugs. How could this country not negotiate drugs all these years where every other place in the world they do negotiate with pharma?Mark Cuban (18:05):Because as we alluded to earlier, the first line in every single pharmaceutical and healthcare contract says, you can't talk about this contract. It's like fight club. The number one rule of fight club is you can't talk about fight club, and it's really difficult to negotiate prices when it's opaque and everything's obfuscated where you can't really get into the details. So it's not that we're not capable of it, but it's just when there's no data there, it's really difficult because look, up until we started publishing our prices, how would anybody know?Mark Cuban (18:39):I mean, how was anybody going to compare numbers? And so, when the government or whoever started to negotiate, they tried to protect themselves and they tried to get data, but those big PBMs certainly have not been forthcoming. We've come along and publish our price list and all that starts to change. Now in terms of the bigger picture, there is a solution there, as I said earlier, but it really comes down to talking to the people who make the decisions to hire the big insurance companies and the big PBMs and telling them, no, you're not acting in your own best interest. Here's anybody watching out there. Ask your PBM if they can audit. If you can audit rather your PBM contract. What they'll tell you is, yeah, you can, but you have to use our people. It's insane. And that's from top to bottom. And so, I'm a big believer that if we can get starting with self-insured employers to act in their own best interest, and instead of working with a big PBM work with a pass-through PBM. A pass-through PBM will allow you to keep your own claims, own all your own data, allow you to control your own formulary.Mark Cuban (19:54):You make changes where necessary, no NDA, so you can't talk to manufacturers. All these different abilities that just seem to make perfect sense are available to all self-insured employers. And if the government, same thing. If the government requires pass-through PBMs, the price of medications will drop like a rock.Eric Topol (20:16):Is that possible? You think that could happen?Mark Cuban (20:19):Yes. Somebody's got to understand it and do it. I'm out there screaming, but we will see what happens with the new administration. There's nothing hard about it. And it's the same thing with Medicare and Medicare Advantage healthcare plans. There's nothing that says you have to use the biggest companies. Now, the insurance companies have to apply and get approved, but again, there's a path there to work with companies that can reduce costs and improve outcomes. The biggest challenge in my mind, and I'm still trying to work through this to fully understand it. I think where we really get turned upside down as a country is we try to avoid fraud from the provider perspective and the patient perspective. We're terrified that patients are going to use too much healthcare, and like everybody's got Munchausen disease.Mark Cuban (21:11):And we're terrified that the providers are going to charge too much or turn into Purdue Pharma and over-prescribe or one of these surgery mills that just is having somebody get surgery just so they can make money. So in an effort to avoid those things, we ask the insurance companies and the PBMs to do pre-authorizations, and that's the catch 22. How do we find a better way to deal with fraud at the patient and provider level? Because once we can do that, and maybe it's AI, maybe it's accepting fraud, maybe it's imposing criminal penalties if somebody does those things. But once we can overcome that, then it becomes very transactional. Because the reality is most insurance companies aren't insurance companies. 50 million lives are covered by self-insured employers that use the BUCAs, the big insurance companies, but not as insurance companies.Eric Topol (22:07):Yeah, I was going to ask you about that because if you look at these three big PBMs that control about 80% of the market, not the pass-throughs that you just mentioned, but the big ones, they each are owned by an insurance company. And so, when the employer says, okay, we're going to cover your healthcare stuff here, we're going to cover your prescriptions there.Mark Cuban (22:28):Yeah, it's all vertically integrated.Mark Cuban (22:36):And it gets even worse than that, Eric. So they also own specialty pharmacies, “specialty pharmacies” that will require you to buy from. And as I alluded to earlier, a lot of these medications like Imatinib, they'll list as being a specialty medication, but it's a pill. There's nothing special about it, but it allows them to charge a premium. And that's a big part of how the PBMs make a lot of their money, the GPO stuff we talked about, but also forcing an employer to go through the specialty mail order company that charges an arm and the leg.Impact on Hospitals and ProceduresEric Topol (23:09):Yeah. Well, and the point you made about transparency, we've seen this of course across US healthcare. So for example, as you know, if you were to look at what does it cost to have an operation like let's say a knee replacement at various hospitals, you can find that it could range fivefold. Of course, you actually get the cost, and it could be the hospital cost, and then there's the professional cost. And the same thing occurs for if you're having a scan, if you're having an MRI here or there. So these are also this lack of transparency and it's hard to get to the numbers, of course. There seems to be so many other parallels to the PBM story. Would you go to these other areas you think in the future?Mark Cuban (23:53):Yeah, we're doing it now. I'm doing it. So we have this thing called project dog food, and what it is, it's for my companies and what we've done is say, look, let's understand how the money works in healthcare.Mark Cuban (24:05):And when you think about it, when you go to get that knee done, what happens? Well, they go to your insurance company to get a pre-authorization. Your doctor says you need a knee replacement. I got both my hips replaced. Let's use that. Doctor says, Mark, you need your hips replaced. Great, right? Let's set up an appointment. Well, first the insurance company has to authorize it, okay, they do or they don't, but the doctor eats their time up trying to deal with the pre-authorization. And if it's denied, the doctor's time is eaten up and an assistance's time is eaten up. Some other administrator's time is eaten up, the employer's time is eaten up. So that's one significant cost. And then from there, there's a deductible. Now I can afford my deductible, but if there is an individual getting that hip replacement who can't afford the deductible, now all of a sudden you're still going to be required to do that hip replacement, most likely.Mark Cuban (25:00):Because in most of these contracts that self-insured employers sign, Medicare Advantage has, Medicare has, it says that between the insurance company and the provider, in this case, the hospital, you have to do the operation even if the deductibles not paid. So now the point of all this is you have the hospital in this case potentially accumulating who knows how much bad debt. And it's not just the lost amount of millions and millions and billions across the entire healthcare spectrum that's there. It's all the incremental administrative costs. The lawyers, the benefits for those people, the real estate, the desk, the office space, all that stuff adds up to $10 billion plus just because the hospitals take on that credit default risk. But wait, there's more. So now the surgery happens, you send the bill to the insurance company. The insurance company says, well, we're not going to pay you. Well, we have a contract. This is what it says, hip replacement's $34,000. Well, we don't care first, we're going to wait. So we get the time value of money, and then we're going to short pay you.Mark Cuban (26:11):So the hospital gets short paid. So what do they have to do? They have to sue them or send letters or whatever it is to try to get their money. When we talk to the big hospital systems, they say that's 2%. That's 2% of their revenue. So you have all these associated credit loss dollars, you've got the 2% of, in a lot of cases, billions and billions of dollars. And so, when you add all those things up, what happens? Well, what happens is because the providers are losing all that money and having to spend all those incremental dollars for the administration of all that, they have to jack up prices.Eric Topol (26:51):Yeah. Right.Mark Cuban (26:53):So what we have done, we've said, look for my companies, we're going to pay you cash. We're going to pay you cash day one. When Mark gets that hip replacement, that checks in the bank before the operation starts, if that's the way you want it. Great, they're not going to have pre-authorizations. We're going to trust you until you give us a reason not to trust you. We're not short paying, obviously, because we're paying cash right there then.Mark Cuban (27:19):But in a response for all that, because we're cutting out all those ancillary costs and credit risk, I want Medicare pricing. Now the initial response is, well, Medicare prices, that's awful. We can't do it. Well, when you really think about the cost and operating costs of a hospital, it's not the doctors, it's not the facilities, it's all the administration that cost all the money. It's all the credit risks that cost all the money. And so, if you remove that credit risk and all the administration, all those people, all that real estate, all those benefits and overhead associated with them, now all of a sudden selling at a Medicare price for that hip replacement is really profitable.Eric Topol (28:03):Now, is that a new entity Cost Plus healthcare?Mark Cuban (28:07):Well, it's called Cost Plus Wellness. It's not an entity. What we're going to do, so the part I didn't mention is all the direct contracts that we do that have all these pieces, as part of them that I just mentioned, we're going to publish them.Eric Topol (28:22):Ah, okay.Mark Cuban (28:23):And you can see exactly what we've done. And if you think about the real role of the big insurances companies for hospitals, it's a sales funnel.Getting Rid of Insurance CompaniesEric Topol (28:33):Yeah, yeah. Well, in fact, I really was intrigued because you did a podcast interview with Andrew Beam and the New England Journal of Medicine AI, and in that they talked about getting rid of the insurers, the insurance industry, just getting rid of it and just make it a means test for people. So it's not universal healthcare, it's a different model that you described. Can you go over that? I thought it was fantastic.Mark Cuban (29:00):Two pieces there. Let's talk about universal healthcare first. So for my companies, for our project dog food for the Mark Cuban companies, if for any employee or any of the lives we cover, if they work within network, anybody we have the direct contract with its single-payer. They pay their premiums, but they pay nothing else out of pocket. That's the definition of single-payer.Eric Topol (29:24):Yeah.Mark Cuban (29:25):So if we can get all this done, then the initial single-payers will be self-insured employers because it'll be more cost effective to them to do this approach. We hope, we still have to play it all through. So that's part one. In terms of everybody else, then you can say, why do we need insurance companies if they're not even truly acting as insurance companies? You're not taking full risk because even if it's Medicare Advantage, they're getting a capitated amount per month. And then that's getting risk adjusted because of the population you have, and then there's also an index depending on the location, so there's more or less money that occurs then. So let's just do what we need to do in this particular case, because the government is effectively eliminating the risk for the insurance company for the most part. And if you look at the margins for Medicare Advantage, I was just reading yesterday, it's like $1,700 a year for the average Medicare Advantage plan. So it's not like they're taking a lot of risk. All they're doing is trying to deny as many claims as they can.Eric Topol (30:35):Deny, Deny. Yeah.Mark Cuban (30:37):So instead, let's just get somebody who's a TPA, somebody who does the transaction, the claims processing, and whoever's in charge. It could be CMS, can set the terms for what's accepted and what's denied, and you can have a procedure for people that get denied that want to challenge it. And that's great, there's one in place now, but you make it a little simpler. But you take out the economics for the insurance company to just deny, deny, deny. There's no capitation. There's no nothing.Mark Cuban (31:10):The government just says, okay, we're hiring this TPA to handle the claims processing. It is your job. We're paying you per transaction.Mark Cuban (31:18):You don't get paid more if you deny. You don't get paid less if you deny. There's no bonuses if you keep it under a certain amount, there's no penalties If you go above a certain amount. We want you just to make sure that the patient involved is getting the best care, end of story. And if there's fraud involved as the government, because we have access to all that claims data, we're going to introduce AI that reviews that continuously.Mark Cuban (31:44):So that we can see things that are outliers or things that we question, and there's going to mean mistakes, but the bet was, if you will, where we save more and get better outcomes that way versus the current system and I think we will. Now, what ends up happening on top of that, once you have all that claims data and all that information and everybody's interest is aligned, best care at the best price, no denials unless it's necessary, reduce and eliminate fraud. Once everybody's in alignment, then as long as that's transparent. If the city of Dallas decides for all the lives they cover the 300,000 lives they cover between pharmacy and healthcare, we can usually in actuarial tables and some statistical analysis, we can say, you know what, even with a 15% tolerance, it's cheaper for us just to pay upfront and do this single-pay program, all our employees in the lives we cover, because we know what it's going to take.Mark Cuban (32:45):If the government decides, well, instead of Medicare Advantage the way it was, we know all the costs. Now we can say for all Medicare patients, we'll do Medicare for all, simply because we have definitive and deterministic pricing. Great. Now, there's still going to be outlier issues like all the therapies that cost a million dollars or whatever. But my attitude there is if CMS goes to Lilly, Novo, whoever for their cure for blindness that's $3.4 million. Well, that's great, but what we'll say is, okay, give us access to your books. We want to know what your breakeven point is. What is that breakeven point annually? We'll write you a check for that.Eric Topol (33:26):Yeah.Mark Cuban (33:27):If we have fewer patients than need that, okay, you win. If we have more patients than need that, it's like a Netflix subscription with unlimited subscribers, then we will have whatever it is, because then the manufacturer doesn't lose money, so they can't complain about R&D and not being able to make money. And that's for the CMS covered population. You can do a Netflix type subscription for self-insured employers. Hey, it's 25 cents per month per employee or per life covered for the life of the patent, and we'll commit to that. And so, now all of a sudden you get to a point where healthcare starts becoming not only transparent but deterministic.Eric Topol (34:08):Yeah. What you outline here in these themes are extraordinary. And one of the other issues that you are really advocating is patient empowerment, but one of the problems we have in the US is that people don't own their data. They don't even have all their data. I expect you'd be a champion of that as well.Mark Cuban (34:27):Well, of course. Yeah. I mean, look, I've got into arguments with doctors and public health officials about things like getting your own blood tested. I've been an advocate of getting my own blood tested for 15 years, and it helped me find out that I needed thyroid medication and all of these things. So I'm a big advocate. There's some people that think that too much data gives you a lot of false positives, and people get excited in this day and age to get more care when it should only be done if there are symptoms. I'm not a believer in that at all. I think now, particularly as AI becomes more applicable and available, you'll be able to be smarter about the data you capture. And that was always my final argument. Either you trust doctors, or you don't. Because even if there's an aberrational TSH reading and minus 4.4 and it's a little bit high, well the doctor's going to say, well, let's do another blood test in a month or two. The doctor is still the one that has to write the prescription. There's no downside to trusting your doctor in my mind.Eric Topol (35:32):And what you're bringing up is that we're already seeing how AI can pick up things even in the normal range, the trends long before a clinician physician would pick it up. Now, last thing I want to say is you are re-imagining healthcare like no one. I mean, there's what you're doing here. It started with some pills and it's going in a lot of different directions. You are rocking it here. I didn't even know some of the latest things that you're up to. This seems to be the biggest thing you've ever done.Mark Cuban (36:00):I hope so.Mark Cuban (36:01):I mean, like we said earlier, what could be better than people saying our healthcare system is good. What changed? That Cuban guy.Eric Topol (36:10):Well, did you give up Shark Tank so you could put more energy into this?Mark Cuban (36:16):Not really. It was more for my kids.Eric Topol (36:19):Okay, okay.Mark Cuban (36:20):They go hand in hand, obviously. I can do this stuff at home as opposed to sitting on a set wondering if I should invest in Dude Wipes again.Eric Topol (36:28):Well, look, we're cheering for you. This is, I've not seen a shakeup in my life in American healthcare like this. You are just rocking. It's fantastic.Mark Cuban (36:37):Everybody out there that's watching, check out www.costplusdrugs.com, check out Cost Plus Marketplace, which is business.costplusdrugs.com and just audit everything. What I'm trying to do is say, okay, if it's 1955 and we're starting healthcare all over again, how would we do it? And really just keep it simple. Look to where the risk is and remove the risk where possible. And then it comes down to who do you trust and make sure you trust but verify. Making sure there aren't doctors or systems that are outliers and making sure that there aren't companies that are outliers or patients rather that are outliers. And so, I think there's a path there. It's not nearly as difficult, it's just starting them with corporations, getting those CEOs to get educated and act in their own best interest.Eric Topol (37:32):Well, you're showing us the way. No question. So thanks so much for joining, and we'll be following this with really deep interest because you're moving at high velocity, and thank you.**************************************************Thank you for reading, listening and subscribing to Ground Truths.If you found this fun and informative please share it!All content on Ground Truths—its newsletters, analyses, and podcasts, are free, open-access.Paid subscriptions are voluntary. All proceeds from them go to support Scripps Research. Many thanks to those who have contributed—they have greatly helped fund our summer internship programs for the past two years. I welcome all comments from paid subscribers and will do my best to respond to each of them and any questions.Thanks to my producer Jessica Nguyen and to Sinjun Balabanoff for audio and video support at Scripps Research.FootnoteThe PBMS (finally) are under fire—2 articles from the past week Get full access to Ground Truths at erictopol.substack.com/subscribe

FAQ: IT Privacy and Security Weekly Update (Week Ending December 17th, 2024) 1. What is the main takeaway from the recent US Telecom breach? The breach linked to Chinese hackers highlights the dangers of government backdoors in encryption systems. The 1994 CALEA law, intended to assist law enforcement, created vulnerabilities exploited in this incident. Experts emphasize that backdoors weaken security for everyone and make systems susceptible to both good and bad actors. 2. What security concerns arose with UnitedHealthcare's Optum AI chatbot? Optum's AI chatbot, used internally for managing health insurance claims, was left publicly accessible without a password. Although it didn't contain sensitive health data, its exposure raises concerns about the responsible management of AI, particularly given UnitedHealthcare's alleged use of AI to deny patient claims. 3. Despite improvements, why should users still be cautious with Microsoft's Recall feature? While Microsoft's Recall screen capture tool now includes encryption and sensitive information filtering, tests reveal inconsistencies in its performance. It struggles to identify private data in non-standard formats or situations, potentially leading to unintended exposure of sensitive details. 4. What is the significance of Meta's recent €251 million fine by the EU? The fine stems from a 2018 security breach exposing data of millions of EU users. It underscores the EU's strong enforcement of the GDPR and emphasizes the importance of companies prioritizing data protection. For users, it serves as a reminder that their personal information may not always be secure. 5. How is the US-China trade conflict impacting the Ukraine war effort? China is limiting sales of drone components critical to Ukraine's defense as part of the escalating trade conflict with the US. This move is expected to expand to broader export restrictions, hindering Ukraine's access to vital drone technology. 6. Why is the EU investing in its own satellite constellation, IRIS²? The EU aims to reduce reliance on non-European networks like Starlink by developing IRIS². This sovereign satellite constellation will provide secure internet access across Europe, enhancing strategic autonomy and fostering public-private collaboration in the space sector. 7. What benefits will Let's Encrypt's new six-day certificates offer? The shift to shorter certificate lifespans significantly reduces security risks associated with compromised keys. While this means issuing more certificates, Let's Encrypt's automated systems will ensure a smooth transition for users, resulting in a safer and more secure internet experience. 8. How is United Airlines using Apple technology to improve its baggage handling? United Airlines is integrating Apple's "Share Item Location" feature into its mobile app. Passengers can now share real-time locations of AirTags attached to their luggage, enabling United's customer service team to track and retrieve misplaced baggage more efficiently.

"Plus, UnitedHealth's Optum left an AI chatbot exposed to the internet." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this conversation, Yaw Fellin, Vice President of Product and Solutions for Clinical Effectiveness at Wolters Kluwer Health, discusses the integration of AI in healthcare, focusing on clinical decision support, partnerships, and the importance of responsible AI practices. He shares insights from the HLTH 2024 conference, highlighting the enthusiasm for AI technologies and the need for improvements in provider workflows. The discussion also covers significant partnerships aimed at enhancing clinical care and the evolving role of AI in reducing provider burden.In this episode they discuss:The focus is on helping clinicians make the best decisions.Small time increments in workflows can lead to significant improvements.There's genuine enthusiasm for AI's tangible benefits in healthcare.Responsible approaches to AI are crucial to eliminate bias.Partnerships are essential for advancing healthcare technology.AI can significantly reduce provider burnout and improve workflows.The integration of AI in clinical settings is a powerful opportunity.Investing in responsible AI practices is a priority for healthcare organizations.Collaboration across care teams can enhance patient care.The future of AI in healthcare is promising but requires careful navigation.A little bit about Yaw : Yaw Fellin brings more than 20 years of experience as a healthcare executive, with proven results leading cross-functional teams, generating value and revenue growth.Prior to joining Wolters Kluwer Health, Yaw spent 3 years at Optum, a global healthcare IT company. Before that, Yaw spent over 15 years at the Advisory Board, a leading healthcare research, consulting and technology firm, where he led multiple high growth SaaS business lines. He received a BS in Healthcare Administration from Penn State University.

Welcome solo and group practice owners! We are Liath Dalton and Evan Dumas, your co-hosts of Group Practice Tech. In our latest episode, we explore the impact of the recent rate cuts for Headway and Alma clinicians. We discuss: The common anxieties around corporate/VC owned telehealth companies The incentives these companies use to lure clinicians The cracks starting to appear in these companies How the rate cuts will impact clinicians How the rate cuts will impact group practices and solo practices Listen here:  https://personcenteredtech.com/group/podcast/ For more, visit our website. Resources Clear Health Costs article: UnitedHealth-Optum pay cut makes clinicians reassess value of tech mental health platforms Clear Health Costs article: 2 digital mental health platforms cut pay rates for therapists with UnitedHealth's Optum, stirring anger PCT Resources Group Practice Care Premium weekly (live & recorded) direct support & consultation service, Group Practice Office Hours -- including monthly session with therapist attorney Eric Ström, JD PhD LMHC + assignable staff HIPAA Security Awareness: Bring Your Own Device training + access to Device Security Center with step-by-step device-specific tutorials & registration forms for securing and documenting all personally owned & practice-provided devices (for *all* team members at no per-person cost) + assignable staff HIPAA Security Awareness: Remote Workspaces training for all team members + access to Remote Workspace Center with step-by-step tutorials & registration forms for securing and documenting Remote Workspaces (for *all* team members at no per-person cost) + more HIPAA Risk Analysis & Risk Mitigation Planning service for mental health group practices -- care for your practice using our supportive, shame-free risk analysis and mitigation planning service. You'll have your Risk Analysis done within 2 hours, performed by a PCT consultant, using a tool built specifically for mental health group practice, and a mitigation checklist to help you reduce your risks.

Below is a brief video snippet from our conversation. Full videos of all Ground Truths podcasts can be seen on YouTube here. The current one is here. If you like the YouTube format, please subscribe! This one has embedded one of my favorite TikTok's from Will. There are several links to others in the transcript. The audios are also available on Apple and Spotify.Transcript with links to both audio and videos, commencement addresses, NEJM article coverageEric Topol (00:06):Hi, it's Eric Topol from Ground Truths, and I've got an amazing couple with me today. It's Will Flanary and Kristin Flanary, the Glaucomfleckens. I've had the chance to get to know them a bit through Knock Knock, Hi! which is their podcast. And of course, everyone knows Dr. Glaucomflecken from his TikTok world and his other about 4 million followers on Instagram and Twitter and all these other social media, and YouTube. So welcome.Will Flanary (00:43):Thanks for having us.Kristin Flanary (00:44):Thank you. Happy to be here.By Way of BackgroundEric Topol (00:45):Yeah. Well, this is going to be fun because I'm going to go a quick background so we can go fast forward because we did an interview back in early 2022.Kristin Flanary (00:56):Yes.Eric Topol (00:57):And what you've been doing since then is rocking it. You're like a meteoric, right. And it was predictable, like rarefied talent and who couldn't love humor, medical humor, but by way of background, just for those who are not up to speed. I guess you got your start, Will, as a class clown when your mother was a teacher in the sixth grade.Will Flanary (01:22):Yep, yep. I misbehaved a little bit. It helped that I still made good grades, but I cut up a bit in class.Eric Topol (01:32):And then you were already in the comedy club circuits doing standup in Houston as an 18-year-old.Will Flanary (01:40):It was all amateur stuff, nothing, just dabble in it and trying to get better. I was always kind of naturally funny just with my friend group and everything. I loved making people laugh, but doing standups is a whole different ball game. And so, I started doing that around Houston as a high school senior and kept that going through college and a little bit into med school.Kristin Flanary (02:02):Houston was a good training ground, right? That where Harris Wittels was also coming up.Will Flanary (02:07):Yeah. A lot of famous comedians have come through Houston. Even going back to Bill Hicks back in the, was that the 80s, I think? Or 90s?Eric Topol (02:17):Well, and then of course, it was I think in 2020 when you launched Dr. Glaucomflecken, I think. Is that right?Will Flanary (02:28):That's when it really started to take off. I was on Twitter telling jokes back in 2016.Kristin Flanary (02:39):GomerBlog before that, that's actually where it was born.Will Flanary (02:41):I was doing satire writing. I basically do what I'm doing now, but in article form, trying to be The Onion of medicine. And then the pandemic hit, started doing video content and that's really with lockdown. That's when, because everybody was on social media, nobody had anything else to do. So it was right place, right time for me and branching out into video content.On to Medical School Commencement AddressesEric Topol (03:11):Alright, so that's the background of some incredible foundation for humor. But since we last got together, I'll link the Medicine and the Machine interview we did back then. What has been happening with you two is nothing short of incredible. I saw your graduation speeches, Will. Yale in 2022, I watched the UCSF in 2023 and then the University of Michigan in 2024. Maybe there's other ones I don't even know.Kristin Flanary (03:45):There's a few others.Will Flanary (03:45):There's a few. But I feel like you've done, I'm sure your fair share of commencement addresses as well. It's kind of hard to come up with different ways to be inspirational to the next generation. So fortunately, we have together, we have some life experiences and learned a thing or two by doing all of this social media stuff and just the things we've been through that I guess I have enough things to say to entertain an interest.Eric Topol (04:18):Well, you're being humble as usual, but having watched those commencement addresses, they were the best medical commencement addresses I've ever seen. And even though you might have told us some of the same jokes, they were so great that it was all right. Yeah, and you know what is great about it is you've got these, not the students, they all love you of course, because they're probably addicted to when's your next video going to get posted.(04:44):But even the old professors, all the family members, it's great. But one of the things I wanted to get at. Well, I'll start with the graduation speeches, because you were such an inspiration, not just with humor, but your message. And this gets back to you as a couple and the tragedies you've been through. So you really, I think, got into this co-survivor story and maybe Kristin, since you are the co-survivor of two bouts of Will's testicular cancer, and then the sudden cardiac death. I mean, people don't talk about this much, so maybe you could help enlighten us.Tragedies and Being a Co-SurvivorKristin Flanary (05:26):Yeah, it's funny because the experience of being a co-survivor is nothing new. It's as long as we've had human beings, we've had co-survivors. But the concept around it and giving it a name and a label, a framework to be able to think about it, that is what I think is new and what people haven't talked about before. So co-survivor is just this idea that when a medical trauma happens to a patient, the patient has their experience and if they survive it, they are a survivor and they have a survivor experience. And also, most people are closely attached to at least one other person, if not many. And those people are co-surviving the medical event along with the survivor. That event is happening in their lives as was happening to them too. If someone comes in with a patient to the hospital, that person, you can just assume by default that their lives are pretty intimately or profoundly intertwined or else why would that person be there? And so, thinking of it as there's the patient and then there's also a co-patient, that family members in the past have only been thought of as caregivers if they've been thought of at all. And that is certainly one aspect of the role, but it's important to remember that whatever it is that's happening to the patient is also affecting the family members' lives in a really deep and profound way.Eric Topol (07:04):That's really helpful. Now, the fact that you recognize that in your graduation speech, Will, I think is somewhat unique. And of course, some of the other things that you touched on like playing to your creativity and the human factors, I mean, these are so important messages.Will Flanary (07:23):Well, in the discussion about co-survivorship and because I talk about that whenever I do my keynotes and when I do the commencement addresses, but all credit goes to Kristin for really being the driving force of this idea for me and for many others because as a physician, we take care of patients. Our focus is always on the patient. And it really wasn't until this happened to me and my family and Kristin in particular that I started to understand exactly what she's talking about and this idea. And so, Kristin gets a lot of credit for just really bringing that term and that idea to the forefront.Eric Topol (08:09):Yeah, well, you saved his life. It's just not many have that bond. And then the other thing I just want to mention now, you've been recognized by the American Heart Association and a whole bunch of other organizations awarded because of your advocacy for CPR. And you even mentioned that I think in one of your commencement addresses.Will Flanary (08:31):Yeah, I tried to get the crowd to do CPR. Like team up, partner up, and it kind of fell flat. It wasn't quite the right time, I think, to try to do a mass class on CPR. So maybe next time.Eric Topol (08:47):Right. Well, so you had this foundation with the Glaucomflecken General Hospital and taking on 37 specialties and all these incredible people that became part of the family, if you will, of spoof on medicine and your alter ego and these videos that you would do. And sometimes you have three or four different alter egos in there playing out, but now you've branched into new things. So one which is an outgrowth of what we were just talking about. You've been on this country tour, Wife & Death.“Wife and Death,” A Nationwide TourKristin Flanary (09:28):Yes.Eric Topol (09:29):Wife and death. I mean, yeah, I guess we can make the connect of how you named it that, but what is it you've been selling out in cities all over the country, and by the way, I'm really upset you haven't come to San Diego, but tell us about wife and death.Will Flanary (09:44):Yeah. Well, we have this amazing story and all these medical challenges we've been through, and then developing the Glaucomflecken brand and universe, and we've done keynotes together for years, and then we thought, let's have more fun with it. Let's do keynotes. They're great. We can get our message out, but sometimes they're just a bit stuffy. It's an academic environment.Kristin Flanary (10:15):They're usually at seven in the morning also, so that's the downside.Will Flanary (10:21):So we thought, let's just put together our own live show. Let's put together something that we could just creatively, we can do whatever we want with it. I could dress up as characters, Kristin, who has these beautiful writing and monologues that she's put together around her experience and just to create something that people can come into a theater and just experience this wide range of emotions from just laughter to tears of all kinds, and just have them feel the story and enjoy this story. Fortunately, it has a happy ending because I'm still alive and it's been so much fun. The audiences have been incredible. Mostly healthcare, but even some non-healthcare people show up, and we've been blown away by the response. Honestly, we should have done bigger theaters. That's our lesson for the first go round.Eric Topol (11:21):I saw you had to do a second show in Pittsburgh.Will Flanary (11:24):We did.Kristin Flanary (11:26):That one sold out too. Something about Pittsburgh, that was a good crowd, and there was a lot of them.Will Flanary (11:33):It was almost like in Pittsburgh, they rarely ever get any internet comedian ophthalmologists that come through. I don't know.Eric Topol (11:41):Well, I see you got some still to come in Denver and Chicago. This is amazing. And I wondered who was coming and I mean, it's not at all surprising that there'd be this phenomenal popularity. So that's one thing you've done that's new, which is amazing. And of course, it's a multidimensional story. The one that shocked me, I have to tell you, shocked me, was the New England Journal partnership. The New England Journal is the most stodgy, arrogant, I mean so difficult. And not only that.Kristin Flanary (12:17):You said that. Not us.Partnering with the New England Journal of Medicine!Eric Topol (12:19):Yeah, yeah. They'll get this too. They know we don't get along that well, but that's okay. You even made fun of journals. And now you're partnering with the New England Journal, God's greatest medical journal, or whatever. Tell us about that.Will Flanary (12:39):Well, so one thing that I really enjoy doing, and I've done it with my US healthcare system content is almost like tricking people into learning things. And so, if you make something funny, then people will actually sit there and listen to what you have to say about deductibles and physician-owned hospitals and all these inner workings. DIR fees and pharmacy, all these things that are really dry topics. But if you can make them funny, all of a sudden people will actually learn and listen to it. And the New England Journal of Medicine, they approached me with an idea. Basically just to take one or two of their trials per month. And I just make a skit out of that trial with the idea being to help disseminate some of the research findings that are out there, because I guess it's getting harder and harder for people to actually read, to sit down and read a journal article.(13:43):And so, I have to credit them for having this idea and thinking outside the box of a different way to get medical information and knowledge out to the masses. And you're absolutely right, that I have been critical of journals, and particularly I've been critical of the predatory nature of some of the larger journals out there, like Elsevier. I've specifically named Elsevier, Springer, these journals that have a 40% profit margin. And I certainly thought about that whenever I was looking into this partnership. And the reason I was okay with doing it with the New England Journal is because they're a nonprofit, first of all, so they're run by the Massachusetts Medical Society. That's the publisher for that journal. And so, I feel okay partnering with them because I feel like they're doing it in a much better way than some of the bigger journal corporations out there.Kristin Flanary (14:54):Well, and also part of the deal that we negotiated was that those articles that you make skits about those will be available open access.Will Flanary (15:03):Oh yeah. That was a prerequisite. Yes. It was like, if I'm going to do this, the articles that I'm talking about need to be free and readily available. That's part of it.Eric Topol (15:14):I think you've done about five already, something like that. And I watched them, and I just was blown away. I mean, the one that got me where I was just rolling on the floor, this one, the Belantamab Mafodotin for Multiple Myeloma. And when you were going on about the Bortezomib, Dexamethasone. We'll link to this. I said, oh my God.Will Flanary (15:40):Yeah. The joke there is, you don't have any idea how long it took me to say those things that quickly. And so, I was writing this skit and I'm like, wouldn't it be funny if somehow that triggered a code stroke in the hospital because this person is saying all these random words that don't have any meaning to anybody. Man, I tell you, I am learning. Why would I ever need to know any of this information as an ophthalmologist? So it's great. I know all this random stuff about multiple myeloma that I probably would never have learned otherwise.Kristin Flanary (16:21):It's the only way, you won't read a journal either.Eric Topol (16:23):Well, and if you read the comments on the post. These doctors saying, this is the only way they want to get journal information from now on.Will Flanary (16:33):Which is double-edged sword, maybe a little bit. Obviously, in a 90 second skit, there's no way I'm going to cover the ins and outs of a major trial. So it's really, in a lot of ways, it's basically like, I call it a comedy abstract. I'm not going much further than an abstract, but hopefully people that are actually interested in the topic can have their interest piqued and want to read more about it. That's kind of the idea.Eric Topol (17:06):Yeah. Well, they're phenomenal. We'll link to them. People will enjoy them. I know, because I sure did. And tenecteplase for stroke and all that you've done. Oh, they're just phenomenal.Will Flanary (17:20):Every two weeks we come out with a new one.Eric Topol (17:24):And that is basically between the fact that you are now on the commencement circuit of the top medical schools and doing New England Journal videos on their articles. You've crossed a line from just making fun of insurance companies and doctors of specialties.Kristin Flanary (17:44):Oh, he has crossed many lines, Dr. Topol.Eric Topol (17:46):Yeah. Oh yeah. Now you've done it, really. Back two years ago when we convened, actually it's almost three, but you said, when's it going to be your Netflix special?Will Flanary (18:02):Oh, gosh.Eric Topol (18:02):Is that in the works now?Will Flanary (18:04):Well, I'll tell you what's in the works now.Kristin Flanary (18:06):Do you know anyone at Netflix?Will Flanary (18:09):A New Animated SeriesNo. We're working on an animated series.Eric Topol (18:12):Oh, wow. Wow.Will Flanary (18:13):Yeah. All these characters. It's basically just this fictional hospital and all these characters are very cartoonish, the emergency physician that wears the bike helmet and everything. So it's like, well, what do we have together? What do we, Kristin and I have time for? And it wasn't like moving to LA and trying to make a live action with actors and do all, which is something we probably could have tried to do. So instead, we were like, let's just do an animated series.Kristin Flanary (18:48):Let's have someone else do the work and draw us.Will Flanary (18:51):So we've worked with a writer for the first time, which was a fun process, and putting together a few scripts and then also an animator. We learned a lot about that process. Kristin and I are doing the voiceovers. And yeah, it's in process.Kristin Flanary (19:10):We're the only actors we could afford.Will Flanary (19:12):Right, exactly.Eric Topol (19:13):I can't wait to see it. Now when will it get out there?Will Flanary (19:17):Well, we're hoping to be able to put it out on our YouTube channel sometime early next year. So January, February, somewhere around there. And then we can't fund the whole thing ourselves. So the idea is that we do this, we do this pilot episode, and then we'll see what kind of interest we can generate.Eric Topol (19:37):Well, there will be interest. I am absolutely assured of that. Wow.Will Flanary (19:42):Let us know if you know anybody at the Cartoon Network.Kristin and Will Flanary (19:45):Yeah, we're open to possibilities. Whatever, Discovery channel. I don't know.Eric Topol (19:51):You've gotten to a point now where you're ready for bigger things even because you're the funniest physician couple in medicine today.Kristin Flanary (20:05):Well, that's a very low bar, but thank you.Will Flanary (20:08):There are some funny ones out there, but yeah, I appreciate that.Eric Topol (20:11):Well, I'm a really big comedy fan. Every night I watch the night before, since I'm old now, but of Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel, just to hear the monologues. Trevor Noah, too. And I can appreciate humor. I'll go to see Sebastian Maniscalco or Jim Gaffigan. That's one of the things I was going to ask you about, because when you do these videos, you don't have an audience.Will Flanary (20:39):Oh yeah.Eric Topol (20:40):You're making it as opposed to when you are doing your live shows, commencement addresses and things like that. What's the difference when you're trying to be humorous, and you have no audience there?Will Flanary (20:55):Well, whenever I'm filming a skit, it's just all production. In fact, I feel like it's funny. I think it's funny, but it's really not until I see the response to it, or I show Kristin, or what I have is where I really know if it's going to work. It's great to put the content out there and see the responses, but there's nothing like live interaction. And that's why I keep coming back to performing. And Kristin's been a performer too in her life. And I think we both really enjoy just the personal interaction, the close interaction, the response from people to our story.Kristin Flanary (21:36):We do most of our work alone in this room. I do a lot of writing. He does a lot of playing.Will Flanary (21:44):Dress up.Kristin Flanary (21:44):All the people in his head, and we do that very isolated. And so, it's very lovely to be able to actually put names to faces or just see human bodies instead of just comments on YouTube.Will Flanary (21:59):Meet people.Kristin Flanary (21:59):It's really nice.Will Flanary (22:01):We've been doing meet and greets at the live shows and seeing people come up wearing their costumes.Eric Topol (22:07):Oh, wow.Will Flanary (22:11):Some of them talk about how they tell us their own stories about their own healthcare and talk about how the videos help them get through certain parts of the pandemic or a difficult time in their life. And so, it reinforces that this means something to a lot of people.Kristin Flanary (22:29):It's been really fun for me, and probably you too, but to get to see the joy that he has brought so many people. That's really fun to see in person especially.Eric Topol (22:42):No question. Now, when you're producing it together, do you ever just start breaking into laughter because it's you know how funny this is? Or is it just you're on kind of a mission to get it done?Will Flanary (22:54):Well, the skits I do by myself. And sometimes when I'm writing out the skit, when I'm writing the skit itself, I will laugh at myself sometimes. Not often, but sometimes they're like, oh, I know that's really funny. I just wrote a skit that I'm actually going to be debuting. I'm speaking at the American Academy of PM&R, so the big PM&R conference. I'm writing a skit, it's How to Ace your PM&R residency interview.Will Flanary (23:28):I was writing up that skit today and kind of chuckling to myself. So sometimes that happens, but whenever we do our podcast together, we definitely have outtakes.Kristin Flanary (23:38):Oh yeah, we've got some.Will Flanary (23:40):We crack each other up.Kristin Flanary (23:41):We do.Will Flanary (23:42):Sometimes we're getting a little punchy toward the end of the day.Eric Topol (23:47):And how is the Knock Knock, Hi! podcast going?Will Flanary (23:51):It's awesome. Yeah.Kristin Flanary (23:52):Yeah. It's a really fun project.Will Flanary (23:54):We still enjoy. You can work with your spouse and in close proximity and still be happily married. So it's doable everyone.Kristin Flanary (24:06):That's right. And we're in that phase of life that's really busy. We've got kids, we've got a gazillion jobs. House, my parents are around, and so it's like the only time all week that we actually get to sit down and talk to each other. So it's actually kind of like a part of our marriage at this point.Will Flanary (24:28):We're happy to involve the public in our conversations, but we couldn't do it because we have all these things going on, all our hands and all these little places. We can't do it without a team.Kristin Flanary (24:41):Yeah, absolutely.Will Flanary (24:41):And that's the thing that I've learned, because I've always been a very loner type content creator. I just wanted to do it all myself. It's in my head and I have trouble telling others, describing what's in my head. And Kristin and our producers have helped me to be able to give a little bit of control to others who are really good at what they do. And that's really the only way that we've been able to venture out into all these different things we've talked about.Eric Topol (25:12):Well, I think it comes down to, besides your ability to get to people in terms of their laughter receptors, you have this incisive observer capability. And that's one of the things I don't, I can't fathom because when you can understand the nuances of each specialty or of each part of healthcare, and you haven't necessarily interacted with these specialists or at least in recent years, but you nail it every time. I don't know how you do it, really that observational, is that a central quality of a comedian, you think?Will Flanary (25:52):There's definitely a big part of that. You got to get the content from somewhere. But for the specialties, it's really first about just getting the personalities down. And that doesn't change over time.Kristin Flanary (26:08):Or around the world.Will Flanary (26:09):Or around the world. We hear from people from all over the world about, oh, it's the same in Guatemala as it is in the US.Kristin Flanary (26:18):Surgeons are the same.Will Flanary (26:19):Yeah.Kristin Flanary (26:20):Emergency is the same.Will Flanary (26:21):Which has been really cool to see. But so, I draw on my experience interacting with all these specialties back in my med school and intern days. You're right, as an ophthalmologist, we don't get out very much.Eric Topol (26:33):No.Will Flanary (26:35):So very few people have ever seen an ophthalmologist. We do exist. But then beyond that, I do have to include some actual medical things. And so, I actually, I do a lot of research. I find myself learning more about other fields sometimes than I do in my own field. So especially the further out I get from med school, I know less and less.Eric Topol (27:00):Yeah, that's what I was thinking. But you're always spot on. It's interesting to get that global perspective from both of you. Now you're still doing surgery and practicing ophthalmology. Have you reduced it because this has just been taking off so much more over the recent years or keeping it the same?Will and Kristin Flanary (27:21):Nope, I'm still. Do you know how many years I had to come along on all of this medical training? He is not allowed to give this up.Will Flanary (27:29):I know there's something called a sunk cost fallacy, but this is no fallacy. There's enough of a sunk cost. I got to stick with it. No, I still enjoy it. That's the thing. It actually, it informs my comedy, it grounds me. All of the social media stuff is built upon this medical foundation that I have. And if I stopped practicing, I guess I could maybe cut back. But I'm not planning on doing that. If I stop practicing medicine, I feel like it would make my content less.Kristin Flanary (28:07):Authentic.Will Flanary (28:08):Less authentic, yeah. That's a good way to put it.Eric Topol (28:09):Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. That's great you can get that balance with all the things you're doing.Will Flanary (28:17):And if I stop practicing medicine, they're not going to invite me to any more commencement addresses, Dr. Topol. So I got to draw the line somewhere.Eric Topol (28:28):One of the statements you made at some point earlier was, it was easier to go to become a doctor than to try to be a comedian. And yeah, I mean you proven that.Will Flanary (28:38):A lot of ways. That's true.Eric Topol (28:40):Wow. I am pretty awestruck about the rarefied talent that you bring and what you both have done for medicine today. And the thing is, you're so young, you have so much time ahead to have an impact.Will Flanary (28:57):You hear that Kristin, we're young. Look at that.Kristin Flanary (29:00):That's getting less and less true.Will Flanary (29:01):Kristin, she just turned 40. It's right around the corner for me. So I don't know.Will Flanary (29:11):We got some years left.Eric Topol (29:12):You're like young puppies. Are you kidding? You're just getting started. But no, I think that what you brought to medicine in terms of comedy, there's no other entity, no person or people like you have done. And just the last thing I want to ask you about is, you have a platform for advocacy. You've been doing that. We talked about co-survivor. We talked about nurturing the human qualities in physicians like creativity and also taking on the insurance companies, which are just monstrous. I'll link a couple of those, but the brain MRI one or the Texaco.Will Flanary (29:54):Texaco Mike.Eric Topol (29:55):Yeah, that one is amazing. But there is so many. I mean, you've just taken them apart and they deserve every bit of it. Do you have any other targets for advocacy or does that just kind of come up as things go?Will Flanary (30:08):It kind of comes up as things go. There's things I keep harping on. The prior authorization reform, which I've helped in a couple of different states. There's a lot of good people around the country doing really good work on prior authorization and reforming that whole process. And I've been able to just play a small part in that in a couple of different ways. And it's been really fun to do that. And so, I do plan on continuing that crusade as it were. There's certain things I'd like to see. I've been learning more about what pharmacists are dealing with as well as a physician. Unfortunately, we are very separate in a lot of ways and just how we come up in medicine. And so, I have had my eyes opened a lot to what community pharmacists are dealing with. For all the terrible things that we have to deal with as physicians in the healthcare system. Pharmacists have just as much, if not more of the things that they're doing that are threatening their livelihoods. And so, I had love to see some more reform on the PBM side of things, pharmacy benefit managers, Caremark, Optum, all of them. They're causing lots of problems.Eric Topol (31:24):I couldn't agree with you more. In fact, I'm going to have Mark Cuban on in a few weeks and we're going to get into that. But the pharmacists get abused by these chains.Will Flanary (31:33):Oh, it's bad. It's really bad.Eric Topol (31:35):Horrible, horrible. I feel, and every time I am in a drugstore working with one of them, I just think what a tough life they have to deal with.Will Flanary (31:45):I guess from an advocacy standpoint, the good news is that there's never a shortage of terrible injustices that are being foisted upon the public and physicians and healthcare workers.Kristin Flanary (31:59):Yes. The US healthcare system is ripe for advocacy.Will Flanary (32:01):Yes. And that's a lesson that I tell people too, and especially the med students coming up, is like, there's work to be done and get in touch with your state societies and there's always work to be done.Eric Topol (32:18):Now you've stayed clear of politics. Totally clear, right?Will Flanary (32:24):For the most part, yeah. Yeah. It depends on what you consider politics. It depends on what you consider politics.Eric Topol (32:32):It being election day, you haven't made any endorsements.Will Flanary (32:36):I haven't. And I don't know. I can only handle so much. I've got my things that I really care about. Of course I'm voting, but I want to talk on the things that I feel like I have the expertise to talk about. And I think there's nothing wrong with that. Everybody can't have an opinion on everything, and it means something. So I am happy to discuss the things that I have expertise about, and I'm always on the side of the patient and wanting to make life better for our patients. And that's the side I'm on.Kristin Flanary (33:25):I think also he never comes out and explicitly touches on certain topics, but it's not hard to tell where he falls.Will Flanary (33:34):If you really want read into it all.Kristin Flanary (33:38):It's not like it's a big secret.Eric Topol (33:40):I thought that too. I'm glad you mentioned it, Kristin. But it doesn't come out wide open. But yeah, it's inferred for sure.Eric Topol (33:49):I think the point being there is that because you have a reach, I think there's no reach that it has 4 million plus people by your posts and no less the tours and keynotes and everything else. So you could go anywhere but sticking to where you're well grounded, it makes a lot of sense. And anyway, I am going to be staying tuned. This is our two-year checkup. I'm hoping you're going to come to San Diego on your next tour.Kristin Flanary (34:21):We're working on 2025 plans.Will Flanary (34:23):Oh, we got more shows coming up. And we'll hit up other parts of the country too.Eric Topol (34:28):I feel like I got to meet you in person, give you a hug or something. I just feel like I'm missing out there. But it's just a joy to have had a chance to work with you on your podcast. And thanks for coming back on one of mine. There's lots of podcasts out there, but having you and joining you is such fun. So thank you.Will Flanary (34:54):This has been great. Thank you for having us.Kristin Flanary (34:55):Yeah, thank you.*****************************************Thank you for reading, listening and and subscribing to Ground Truths.If you found this fun and informative please share it! Yes, laughter is the best medicine.All content on Ground Truths—its newsletters, analyses, and podcasts, are free, open-access.Paid subscriptions are voluntary. All proceeds from them go to support Scripps Research. Many thanks to those who have contributed—they have greatly helped fund our summer internship programs for the past two years.Thanks to my producer Jessica Nguyen and to Sinjun Balabanoff for audio and video support at Scripps Research.Note on Exodus from X/twitter:Many of you have abandoned the X platform for reasons that I understand. While I intend to continue to post there because of its reach to the biomedical community, I will post anything material here in the Notes section of Ground Truths on a daily basis and cover important topics in the newsletter/analyses. Get full access to Ground Truths at erictopol.substack.com/subscribe

President-elect Donald Trump nominates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the next Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. And the Biden Administration sues to halt Optum's multibillion dollar acquisition of home health provider Amedisys on antitrust grounds. We get those stories—and more—coming up on today's episode of the Gist Healthcare podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, host Sandy Vance talks with Bill Miller, CEO of WellSky, about the evolving role of analytics in healthcare and its impact on patient care. Bill emphasizes that the healthcare industry must invest in AI solutions to tackle pressing challenges, such as the home-based care staffing crisis, reducing clinician "pajama time," ensuring smoother transitions from hospital to post-acute care and streamlining workflows within existing electronic health record systems. These advancements will enable clinicians to focus on what truly matters—providing human-centered care. Bill also discusses WellSky's collaboration with Google to develop AI tools designed to support, not replace, clinicians.In this episode, they talk about:What WellSky does for the healthcare industry, specifically in direct careHow WellSky helps clinicians deliver optimal patient careWellSky's balanced approach to AI in healthcareThe importance of proactive versus reactive strategiesSupporting clients in and out of hospital settingsAccelerating the referral process with AI solutionsThe rationale behind WellSky's partnership with GoogleThe future of WellSky and AI in healthcareA Little About Bill:Bill Miller is the CEO of WellSky and a recognized leader in the healthcare industry. He has a rich background including more than 25 years of groundbreaking growth strategies and technological innovation in the healthcare marketplace and a proven track record of launching and leading highly successful healthcare IT companies. Under Bill's leadership, WellSky has become one of America's largest and most innovative healthcare technology companies, serving more than 20,000 clients across acute, post-acute, and community care. He has overseen the strategic acquisition of more than 14 companies to the WellSky portfolio, helped establish the WellSky Foundation, and guided the company into new marketplaces with innovative technology and services shaping the industry. Before joining WellSky in 2017, Bill served as the CEO of OptumInsight, a division of Optum, which is the health services platform of UnitedHealth Group. Under Bill's direction, OptumInsight experienced unprecedented revenue growth, expanded margins, and claimed a transformative position in the health services market. He led the evolution of Optum into the leader in healthcare analytics and launched several tech-enabled business platforms. Before OptumInsight, Bill served as senior vice president of technologies at Cerner Corporation, where he had global responsibility for the company's managed services, outsourcing, and technology services business units. Bill currently sits on the board of directors for Lyric and Lifestance, both in the healthcare sector and the WellSky Foundation. A graduate of the University of Kansas, Bill earned his bachelor's degree in economics and a master's degree in urban planning and public policy. He enjoys spending time with his three children Ellie, 24, Belle, 21, and Matthew, 20.

Emotional intelligence isn't just a personal skill; it's a powerful asset that shapes entire cultures, fuels resilience, and boosts productivity across teams. In this episode, we'll uncover the secrets that make these organizations thrive. Whether you're a leader, team member, or just passionate about creating positive workplace environments, there's something here for you.  With me to discuss this topic is Roberta Fernandez, a pioneering expert in facilitating organizational change and fostering positive, cooperative cultures. Roberta's work focuses on helping organizations elevate their internal dynamics, addressing issues like customer service, employee engagement, retention, and communication. With her extensive background in cognitive transformation, emotional intelligence, and systems thinking, she empowers leaders to create environments where collaboration thrives. Roberta's past clients form a diverse portfolio, including Kemps, Sam's Club, Target, Optum, Pentair, governments, academic institutions, and private small businesses.

The Current State of Podcasting: A Comprehensive GuideIn the latest episode of our podcast, we had the pleasure of hosting Jeff Umbro, the CEO of Podglomerate. Jeff shared his extensive knowledge about the podcasting industry, offering valuable insights into its growth, best practices for independent podcasters, and effective monetization strategies. This blog post will break down the key points discussed in the episode, providing actionable advice and thorough explanations to help you navigate the podcasting landscape.Jeff begins by highlighting the impressive growth of podcasting over the past 16 years. According to the Edison Infinite Dial Report, approximately 132 million people in the U.S. listen to podcasts regularly, averaging about seven shows each month. This growth has been further accelerated by the pandemic, which increased streaming audio consumption. Podglomerate, founded in 2017, is a podcast services company that focuses on producing, marketing, and monetizing podcasts. They work with a diverse range of clients, from large corporations like Netflix and PBS to small businesses and individual creators. Jeff emphasizes that their goal is to help podcasters create high-quality content and effectively reach their target audience.Jeff also discusses the recent consolidation in the podcasting industry, with major players like Spotify, SiriusXM, and Apple acquiring smaller companies. This consolidation has led to a shift in the types of shows being produced, with a growing focus on ad sales and listener engagement. Despite these changes, advertising on podcasts remains highly effective. Jeff notes that podcast ads often outperform other digital mediums, attracting more brands to the space. He emphasizes the importance of creating quality content that resonates with listeners and advises podcasters to focus on engagement metrics such as social media mentions, listener feedback, and overall consumption patterns. For those with limited budgets, Jeff recommends leveraging owned properties like websites, newsletters, and social media to promote their shows and suggests cross-promotion with similar shows as a more effective strategy for audience growth.About Jeff Umbro:Jeff Umbro is the founder and CEO of The Podglomerate, the award-winning company which produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. The Podglomerate is a boot-strapped organization which now works with more than 70 podcasts and more than 30 million monthly podcast downloads. Jeff has written for and been quoted in Bloomberg, Morning Brew, Adweek, Quartz, Hot Pod, Paste, The Daily Dot, and more. Prior to launching the Podglomerate, Jeff had his hands in audience growth and business development for companies like Product Hunt, Serial Box, VotePlz, Talkshow, and Goldberg McDuffie Communications.About Podglomerate:The Podglomerate has been producing, distributing, and monetizing podcasts since 2016. Now representing more than 70 podcasts accounting for over 30 million monthly downloads, The Podglomerate's clients have topped the podcast charts and have received features on every major podcast distribution app and national coverage in print, digital, radio, and television. The Podglomerate has worked with Freakonomics Radio, PBS, NPR, A+E, Lifetime, History Channel, Harvard Business School, MIT, Stanford, Lit Hub Radio, NPR stations (including KPCC/LAist, NHPR, WHYY, WUNC, VPM, WPM, GBH), WNET, Substack, Magnificent Noise, Expedia, Optum, CVS Health, Hubspot, and Hoff Studios, among many others.Apply to be a Guest on The Thoughtful Entrepreneur: https://go.upmyinfluence.com/podcast-guestLinks Mentioned in this Episode:Want to learn more? Check out Podglomerate website athttps://podglomerate.com/Check out Podglomerate...

For years, health systems have been holding their breath to see if patient volumes would finally return to pre-pandemic levels. Because—per conventional wisdom--if volumes return, then so will operating margins. Right? Not so fast. In this episode, host Abby Burns invites Advisory Board experts Sebastian Beckmann and Elizabeth Orr to explore why with the positive volume forecast we see in our projections won't automatically translate to a healthy financial outlook. Later, Optum Advisory expert Alex Kist joins the group to share what it's looked like to help one health system put their local data into action to achieve the kind of differentiated growth our experts have been touting. Links: Market Scenario Planner 3 ways Boulder Community Health became a provider of choice for CV care Revolutionizing cardiology at Boulder Community Health Ep. 221: How will health system growth look different in 2025 and beyond? Healthcare Consulting Services | Optum Advisory Advisory Board's 7 key factors for future volume growth Charted: The financial gap between rich and poor hospitals grows If you are looking for hands-on support, email us at podcasts@advisory.com or learn more about how Advisory Board can help. Join 165,000+ healthcare leaders and get the industry's most important news in your inbox—every day. Strategic Planner's survey 2024 Survey insights: 6 priorities for health system strategists in 2024 Advisory Board is a subsidiary of Optum. All Advisory Board research, expert perspectives, and recommendations remain independent. A transcript of this episode as well as more information and resources can be found on www.advisory.com/RadioAdvisory.

Today, we're thrilled to introduce Neil Sanghavi. Neil began his journey with Atropos Health in 2020, initially focusing on product and launch strategy part-time, before taking on the role of President in 2021. Before joining Atropos, Neil lent his expertise as an advisor to prominent health tech startups such as Turquoise Health, Abridge, Tuva, and Ribbon Health, where he contributed to go-to-market strategies, data strategy, analytics team development, and network contracting models. In addition to his advisory roles, Neil was the Provider Strategy & Analytics leader at Haven, the joint venture formed by Amazon, JPMorgan, and Berkshire Hathaway. His career also includes strategic positions at the Cleveland Clinic and The Advisory Board Company (now part of Optum), as well as leadership roles in product and commercialization at healthcare startups like Centivo. In this episode, Neil and I explore his journey into health tech, the role of data in healthcare, and Atropos Health's growth. We discuss their go-to-market strategy, the development of ChatRWD, and the importance of data quality. Neil also shares his vision for the future of Atropos and offers advice for founders.

In this podcast episode, Dr. Jonathan H. Westover talks with Jonathan Hunt Glassman and Joshua Lee about digital health innovations in addiction treatment. Jonathan Hunt Glassman - A healthcare entrepreneur and CEO of Oar Health, an addiction recovery platform that is revolutionizing the way people approach Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) treatment. With over 15 years of experience in the healthcare industry, including strategic leadership roles at Humana, Optum, and Bain & Company, Jonathan combines his expertise with a personal journey of overcoming alcohol addiction to make a meaningful impact in the field of addiction and recovery. Joshua Lee specializes in medication-assisted treatment of alcohol and opioid use disorders. He conducts clinical trials and treats patients struggling with addiction as a primary care physician. As a Professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, he leads the Addiction Medicine Fellowship and conducts research focused on justice and community outcomes. He is ready to explore the intersection of addiction treatment with innovative solutions, and personal and professional growth. Check out all of the podcasts in the HCI Podcast Network!

It's In the News! A look at the top diabetes stories and headlines happening now. Top stories this week: The FTC sues PBMs over insulin pricing, a new CGM is approved in Europe, more news about GLP-1s but some research says it may not work as well for one population, diabetes camps are invited to apply for grants, and more! Find out more about Moms' Night Out  Please visit our Sponsors & Partners - they help make the show possible! Learn more about Gvoke Glucagon Gvoke HypoPen® (glucagon injection): Glucagon Injection For Very Low Blood Sugar (gvokeglucagon.com) Omnipod - Simplify Life Learn about Dexcom  Edgepark Medical Supplies Check out VIVI Cap to protect your insulin from extreme temperatures Learn more about AG1 from Athletic Greens  Drive research that matters through the T1D Exchange The best way to keep up with Stacey and the show is by signing up for our weekly newsletter: Sign up for our newsletter here Here's where to find us: Facebook (Group) Facebook (Page) Instagram Twitter Check out Stacey's books! Learn more about everything at our home page www.diabetes-connections.com  Reach out with questions or comments: info@diabetes-connections.com Episode transcription with links: Hello and welcome to Diabetes Connections In the News! I'm Stacey Simms and every other Friday I bring you a short episode with the top diabetes stories and headlines happening now. XX The U.S. Federal Trade Commission sued the country's three largest pharmacy benefit managers on Friday, accusing them of steering diabetes patients towards higher priced insulin in order to reap millions of dollars in rebates from pharmaceutical companies. The case accuses UnitedHealth Group Inc's (UNH.N), opens new tab Optum unit, CVS Health Corp's (CVS.N), opens new tab CVS Caremark and Cigna Corp's (CI.N), opens new tab Express Scripts of unfairly excluding lower cost insulin products from lists of drugs covered by insurers. The three companies said in statements that the suit was baseless and defended their business practices, saying that they had lowered insulin prices for businesses, unions and patients. https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-ftc-sues-drug-gatekeepers-over-high-insulin-prices-2024-09-20/ XX A new study finds metformin, may slow aging. Previous studies on "lower order" species have found that it can delay the onset of age-related diseases.  Gotta say, this is only in animal studies right now, not people, human trials are next. https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/diabetes-drug-metformin-aging/ XX New research from the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine identifies a potential new approach to address the opioid overdose epidemic—which has devastated families and communities nationally.   The study, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, suggests semaglutide is linked to lower opioid overdoses in people with opioid-use disorder (OUD) and type 2 diabetes (T2D).   Semaglutide, a glucagon-like peptide receptor (GLP-1R) molecule that decreases hunger and helps regulate blood sugar in T2D, is also the active component in the diabetes and weight-loss drugs Wegovy and Ozempic.   The research team—led by biomedical informatics professor Rong Xu—analyzed six years of electronic records of nearly 33,000 patients with OUD who also had T2D. The researchers used a statistical approach that mimics a randomized clinical trial.   They found patients prescribed semaglutide had a significantly lower risk for opioid overdose, compared to those who had taken any of eight other anti-diabetic medications, including other types of GLP-1R-targeting medications.   About 107,500 people died from drug overdoses nationally in 2023, mostly from opioids, according to the CDC. Despite effective medications to prevent overdoses from OUD, the CDC estimates only a quarter of those with OUD receive them and about half discontinue treatment within six months. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-09-popular-diabetes-weight-loss-drug.html XX New research analyzing the effects of two drugs used to treat type 2 diabetes indicates a consistent lack of cardiovascular and renal benefits in Black populations. The drugs, called sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 inhibitors (SGLT2-Is) and glucogen-like peptide 1 receptor agonists (GLP1-RAs), are some of the newer treatments prescribed to lower blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes. The research findings, published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, show that for White and Asian populations, SGLT2-Is and GLP1-RAs have beneficial effects on blood pressure, weight control and renal function, and significantly reduce the risk of severe heart problems and kidney disease. However, the research shows no evidence of these beneficial effects in Black populations. ""Whether the differences are due to issues with under-representation of Black populations and low statistical power, or to racial/ethnic variations in the way the body and these drugs interact with each other needs further investigation," said Professor Seidu. "It is therefore important that prescribers don't hasten to deny these newer treatments to Black populations on the back of this research." https://www.news-medical.net/news/20240923/Research-reveals-disparities-in-diabetes-drug-efficacy-for-Black-populations.aspx XX If a woman is already in a "prediabetic" state in her teen or college years, her odds for a serious complication of pregnancy later in life rises, new research shows.   Ignoring prediabetes in teenagers "may represent a missed opportunity to avert pregnancy-related complications" later, said study lead author Katharine McCarthy. She's an assistant professor of population health science and policy, and obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive science at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.   Her team published its findings Sept. 24 in the journal JAMA Network Open. Prior research has found that rates of prediabetes have tripled among Americans ages 12 to 19 over the past decade. In the new study, the Mount Sinai team tracked rates of prediabetes (using blood sugar tests) among a group of 14,000 New York City residents ages 10 to 24. None of these individuals had full-blown diabetes at the time they were tested.   Having prediabetes in youth was linked to a doubling of risk of gestational diabetes -- new-onset diabetes while pregnant. Tracking blood levels of hemoglobin A1c, a measure of a person's average blood sugar level over the prior three months, was very predictive of whether or a not a woman would get gestational diabetes, the team found.   Prediabetes in youth was also linked to an 18% rise in the risk for hypertensive disorders during pregnancy, such as gestational hypertension and preeclampsia, or preterm delivery.   Measuring a teen girl's blood for signs of prediabetes might help protect her against trouble in a later pregnancy, McCarthy's group said. https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2024-09-24/prediabetes-in-teens-could-raise-odds-for-complicated-pregnancies-later XX Is there a link between IBD and type 1? In a recent and very large study, researchers looked at more than 630-thousdan people and found that irritable bowel disease seemed to significantly increase the risk of type 1 diabetes and vice versa. Interestingly, patients with IBD were found to have a significantly higher probability of formerly having contracted T1D, validating the bidirectional associations between these comorbidities. The highest risk was observed in patients with ulcerative colitis (aHR = 2.02), highlighting a stronger association with this IBD subtype. Additionally, over 70% of the study cohort was followed for more than ten years, reinforcing the robustness of these findings. https://www.news-medical.net/news/20240919/IBD-increases-type-1-diabetes-risk-revealing-a-bidirectional-link-between-the-two-conditions.aspx XX Roche plans to launch its first continuous glucose monitor (CGM) in Europe “in the coming weeks,” The Accu-Chek Smartguide has European approval for adults with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes. Roche will roll out the CGM in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany. Accu-Chek Smartguide can be worn for 14 days, and features predictive algorithms that Roche hopes will differentiate it from competitors Abbott and Dexcom. However, it also must be calibrated at first using a finger stick, which the other brands don't require.   Roche developed the CGM with three different prediction tools: A feature to predict the risk of low blood glucose within 30 minutes, a feature to forecast glucose levels over the next two hours, and a feature to predict hypoglycemia risk at night.   Pau Herrero, an algorithm and decision support tech lead at Roche, said the device provides a different picture than the trend arrows other CGMs use, which typically forecast glucose levels over the next 20 minutes. The predictions are based on multiple days of patient data using machine learning models. The company is in “active discussions” with the Food and Drug Administration on bringing Accu-Chek Smartguide to the U.S., Moreiras said, adding that he “cannot commit to any timelines.” https://www.medtechdive.com/news/roche-cgm-launch-europe/726863/ XX Exciting news! iLet users can now invite friends and family to join their Bionic Circle to see their diabetes data and receive alerts. By accepting the invite and downloading our new Bionic Circle App, loved ones can monitor an iLet user's CGM values, meal announcements, insulin doses, and alerts from anywhere.   To learn how to invite followers and accept an invite, visit: https://lnkd.in/ghigJKMt XX Diabetes Canada has unveiled the key findings of a first-of-its-kind national survey on how widespread stigma, judgement and discrimination is for those who live with diabetes and the impact of those social experiences on the quality of life for people with diabetes. The survey shows that diabetes can not only negatively impact a person's physical health but can also negatively affect their personal relationships, work or studies, leisure activities, financial situation, and emotional well-being.   In fact, nearly 90% of people living with type 1 diabetes and 70% of people living with type 2 diabetes experience shame and blame for having diabetes.   “As someone who lives with type 2 diabetes, I know first-hand how stigma can negatively impact the quality of life for people living with this condition in Canada,” says Laura Syron, President & CEO of Diabetes Canada. “We need to change the conversation around diabetes—the values, beliefs and language—so that people living with this condition can feel more accepted and understood. These feelings can dramatically improve the likelihood that people living with diabetes can receive the support and care they need to better their health outcomes and their quality of life.” In the survey, key findings show how people living with diabetes must deal with unfair assumptions about what they can and cannot do, judgements if they consume specific foods, and being blamed for having diabetes. 40% of people with T1D never or rarely ask for support to help manage their diabetes when they need it.   56% of people with T2D never or rarely ask for support to help manage their diabetes when they need it.   https://finance.yahoo.com/news/diabetes-canada-releases-first-kind-101300695.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAJIrWwjdye-ehrLNDt-LIGb5qTXaKDTIa8NWwiT7fKwFFgjDMN2nnINis6YfFePWP2ZA2DVYWXEIZQqRlQ4aKLFrYWgvw1jdI-t1n9kO6NIzdBCMXQNNCVl_S-75lDNip2SysHDJQmyqSc4wLjfDya3v9wwTWU-KgE_OqrPCTnlu XX Edgepark commercial XX This is National Glucose Awareness Week. Dexcom and Beyond Type 2 are teaming up for the new designation to encourage people to learn about the importance of glucose and its significant impact on overall health, especially for people with diabetes. The news release says: National Glucose Awareness Week will feature a variety of educational resources about the importance of glucose health and information about new, cutting-edge glucose biosensing technology. That technology is CGM.. now available over the counter as Dexcom's Stelo. Get moving: Participate in a nationwide step challenge (invitation code: glucose) from Sept. 30 to Oct. 13 to help improve your glucose health.† Step challenge participants can register to participate from Sept. 23-29, 2024 and will have the chance to compete for prizes. Get resources: Close the glucose knowledge gap with key educational resources from Beyond Type 2. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240923896101/en/Dexcom-Beyond-Type-2-and-Retta-Establish-National-Glucose-Awareness-Week-to-Close-the-Glucose-Knowledge-Gap?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=bookmark   XX Attention diabetes camp organizers! You're invited to apply for financial support for your need based scholarships. This is the Type 1 Diabetes Camps Project: 2025-2027 Campership Initiative The initiative will also provide limited funds for selected camps to expand their revenue development efforts, funds for professional development and funds for low-income camper recruitment efforts and indirect costs. The initiative is supported by $6 million in grant funding from The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust and $900 thousand in funding from Eli Lilly and Company over the next three years. For more information about the RFP, please login and navigate to the publicly available RFPs: https://newventurefund.force.com/login XX Join us again soon!

In this week's episode, my guest opens up about his personal battle with alcohol misuse and how he ultimately regained control—a journey he now shares with others, offering hope and guidance to those facing similar struggles.Drawing from the lessons learned during his recovery and his business acumen, he founded Oar Health—a telehealth platform designed to support individuals dealing with substance abuse. His story is a testament to the idea that, through resilience and determination, adversity can be transformed into an opportunity to not only reclaim personal power but also to help others do the same.ABOUT OUR GUESTJonathan Hunt-Glassman is the CEO and co-founder of Oar Health. Oar Health is a telehealth platform that simplifies access to medication-assisted treatment for alcohol use disorder. Oar has helped more than 35,000 members get started with safe, effective, FDA-approved medication that helps them drink less or quit alcohol all together. Jonathan founded Oar Health after struggling with alcohol misuse for more than 15 years before taking back control over alcohol with help from medication. Before founding Oar, Jonathan held healthcare strategy leadership roles at Humana, Optum and Bain & Company.Learn more about Jonathan and his work here:http://www.oarhealth.com/podcasthttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jhuntglassman/https://www.facebook.com/OarHealthhttps://x.com/OarHealthhttps://www.instagram.com/OarHealth/ABOUT OUR HOSTKen Eslick is an Entrepreneur, Author, Podcaster, Tony Robbins Trainer, Life Coach, Husband of 35+ Years, and Grandfather. Ken currently spends his time as the President & Founder of The Leaders Lab where he and his team focus on Senior Leadership Acquisition. They get founders the next level C-Suite Leaders they need to go from being an Inc. Magazine 5000 fastest growing company to $100,000,000 + in revenue.  You can learn more about Ken and his team attheleaderslab.coListen to more episodes on Mission Matters:https://missionmatters.com/author/ken-eslick/

Value-based care has been dominating industry conversations in recent years. Here on Radio Advisory, we talk a lot about best practices, how to make the right investments, and how to best prepare leaders for the future of value-based care. But given all this momentum, we want to spend time asking the question: what are the misconceptions or misaligned expectations that leaders have around value-based care? In this episode, host Rachel (Rae) Woods invites Advisory Board value-based care expert Daniel Kuzmanovich and Optum Advisory Service's SVP of value-based care, Erik Johnson, to discuss the mindset shifts they think leaders should be making when pursuing a sustainable value-based care strategy. Throughout the conversation they discuss what leaders are currently getting wrong, how myths about value-based care are impacting the industry, and more. Links: Our Value-based Care playlist Ep. 172: Build a value-based enterprise: Live from 2023 Value-Based Care Summit Ep. 126: [Bonus content] Commercial risk is possible—here's how How Health Plans Can Support Providers in Risk The climb to value-based care 3 strategies for a successful sleep apnea therapy program: Lessons from ENTTX's ASC partnership Strategic Planner's survey 2024 Survey insights: 6 priorities for health system strategists in 2024 Advisory Board is a subsidiary of Optum. All Advisory Board research, expert perspectives, and recommendations remain independent.

All Home Care Matters and our host, Lance A. Slatton were honored to welcome Jonathan Hunt-Glassman CEO and Co-Founder of Oar Health as guest to the show.   About Jonathan Hunt-Glassman:   Jonathan Hunt-Glassman is the CEO and co-founder of Oar Health. Jonathan founded Oar Health after struggling with alcohol misuse for more than 15 years before taking back control over alcohol with help from medication. Before founding Oar, Jonathan held healthcare strategy leadership roles at Humana, Optum and Bain & Company.   About Oar Health:   Oar Health is a telehealth platform that simplifies access to a daily pill to drink less. Oar has helped more than 35,000 members get started with safe, effective, FDA-approved medication that helps them drink less or quit alcohol altogether.

Eric Scheider Eric Scheider is an experienced enterprise architect with a background in healthcare IT. He has worked with major organizations like Humana and Optum, focusing on aligning business strategies with technology solutions. Eric’s career journey has taken him from developer roles to leadership positions, giving him a unique perspective on the challenges and opportunities...

In this episode of Healthy Mind, Healthy Life, host Sana steps in for Avik to engage in a profound discussion with Jonathan Hunt-Glassman, the co-founder and CEO of Oar Health. Jonathan shares his personal journey of overcoming alcohol addiction and the inspiration behind creating Oar Health, an innovative platform offering accessible, medication-assisted treatment for alcohol use disorder. The episode delves into the alarming surge in alcohol consumption during the pandemic, the long-term consequences, and how Jonathan's platform is helping people regain control over their lives. About the Guest: Jonathan Hunt-Glassman is a healthcare entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience in the industry, including roles at Humana, Optum, and Bain & Company. As the co-founder and CEO of Oar Health, Jonathan is on a mission to make treatment for alcohol use disorder more accessible and effective. His personal experience with alcohol addiction has fueled his passion for helping others find the right tools and support to overcome similar challenges. Key Takeaways: Personal Journey of Recovery: Jonathan discusses his battle with alcohol addiction, emphasizing how finding the right treatment, including prescription medication, was crucial in his recovery. Pandemic Impact on Alcohol Use: The episode highlights the significant increase in alcohol consumption during the pandemic, with a 35% rise in alcohol-related deaths, indicating the ongoing and long-term impact on public health. Innovative Solutions: Jonathan explains how Oar Health aims to fill the gaps in current treatment options by providing accessible, evidence-based solutions, including medication-assisted treatment, through a user-friendly, telehealth platform. Awareness and Accessibility: The conversation sheds light on the importance of awareness about the diverse treatment options available for alcohol use disorder and the need for more accessible solutions that cater to individual needs. Telehealth's Role in Treatment: The discussion underscores how the rapid adoption of telehealth during the pandemic has expanded access to treatment for alcohol use disorder, offering a discreet and convenient option for those seeking help.  

Cory Jenks is the founder of ImprovRx and is a Clinical Pharmacist in Ambulatory Care at Optum. He's a convention-breaking pharmacist, comedian, author, and speaker who combines his healthcare expertise with improv comedy skills to help others adapt to uncertainty and create meaningful connections. Through his innovative approach, books, and performances, he inspires audiences to break free from limiting prescriptions both medical and metaphorical–while finding humor in life's challenges. Today, Cory Jenks shares his unique journey of integrating humor and improv into his roles as a dad and healthcare professional. The conversation explores how a sense of humor can transform parenting challenges into cherished memories and teach resilience through laughter. Cory discusses his background in improv comedy, which he initially pursued to cope with the unpredictability of healthcare, and how it became a vital part of his life. Cory explains key improv principles, such as the "yes, and" technique, demonstrating their application beyond comedy to enhance listening, empathy, and adaptability in daily life. The episode features interactive improv exercises showcasing how these skills can improve interactions with patients, strengthen marriages, and enrich parenting experiences. Listeners will gain insights on incorporating humor and improv techniques to become more present and resilient in their roles as fathers and husbands. Cory's new book, "I Guess I'm a Dad Now," is highlighted as a resource offering practical and hilarious tips for new dads, complementing the episode's engaging and lighthearted discussion. www.thedadedge.com/friday166 www.thedadedge.com/alliance www.linktr.ee/coryjenks Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram | X | Website