Photo of Eric Klein

Eric Klein is is a partner in the Century City office and Leader of the Healthcare Team.

At HLTH 2023, we saw a focus on certain themes, including the shift in investments and M&A activity, hospital and health system innovation and transformation, the implementation of AI, and healthcare management. Below are our top 10 takeaways from what we heard, and did not hear, at HLTH 2023.Continue Reading Sheppard Mullin’s Top 10 Takeaways from HLTH 2023

The digital health market, as represented by the HLTH showroom floor, is packed with companies focused on care coordination and care management for various health and wellness specialties, diseases, and chronic conditions, as well as organizations focused on increasing consumer access to various types of healthcare. Despite the growth of data analytics and interoperability, the constellation of companies and points of access are decentralized and disconnected. While the abundance of choice and options enhancing accessibility for healthcare consumers are positive indicators of progress in this space, the lack of holistic care coordination across this fragmented landscape affects patient outcomes, causes patient confusion and decision fatigue, and leads to potential care and resource duplication and waste.Continue Reading At HLTH 2023: The Digital Health Symphony, A Care Coordination Orchestra with No Maestro

At the heart of our healthcare system lies two core, yet competing, philosophies: (1) clinical decisions must not be driven by profit, and (2) dollars drive behavior and, by harnessing this revenue, clinical outcomes can be vastly improved while the costs to the system of unnecessary care can be dramatically reduced. Here at HLTH, venture capital firm General Catalyst announced it is seeking to change that paradigm with the launch of its Health Assurance Transformation Corporation (HATCo), seeking to transform healthcare with global risk arrangements while leveraging data and technology. Continue Reading At HLTH 2023: General Catalyst’s HATCo Introduces a Radically Ambitious and Transformative Model for Healthcare

One of the topics I followed with keen interest this week at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference is how our healthcare industry today is addressing the mental health needs of Americans. Like much of the rest of healthcare, it is a mix of exciting innovation, contradictions, siloed approaches and the entrepreneurial Wild West. Pull up your favorite couch or chair, and let’s dive in and take a look together.Continue Reading Day 4 Notes from the 41st Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference

Here’s a new word I heard today that I will awkwardly insert into my next conversation – “transrupt.” It is what happens when you have simultaneous disruption and transformation that both damages the existing system and creates (hopefully) a new and better system. Using it in a sentence: “Amazon transrupted how books are sold.” Or perhaps more apropos to this week – “Someone needs to transrupt the orthopedic/ MSK (musculoskeletal conditions) sector.”Continue Reading Day 3 Notes from the 41st Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference

What do Centene, CVS Health-Aetna and Humana all have in common? (Trying really hard not to start off with a “three health plans walk into a bar” joke…). Well, if you were at the 41st annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, you would know that all three are waiting to see what the upcoming final rule on Medicare Advantage risk adjustment data validation (known as RADV) audits will mean for the industry when it drops in February. And, wait, before you switch-off and think that this is a subject of intensive geekery, you should know that this topic impacts the foundational transformation of the healthcare industry from traditional fee-for-service reimbursement to value-based and risk-based reimbursement models, underlies the ability of the healthcare industry to undertake risk stratification to put healthcare resources where they are needed, and implicates billions and billions of dollars paid to health plans and providers. Estimates vary widely in the marketplace, from $12 billion (MedPac) to $200 billion (Richard Kronick, Health Affairs). That’s worth a look in my book. It’s also enough to cause the chief executive officers of these three plans to discuss the possibility of industry litigation against the federal government – which threat was effective in an earlier round of health plans versus CMS and delayed audits, enforcement actions and repayments under the Medicare Advantage risk adjustment program for years.Continue Reading Day 2 Notes from the 41st Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference

I was struck on the first day of the 41st Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference by Sanjay Doddamani (CEO of UpStream Healthcare) saying that “Health is a state of independence.” A simple statement, but a very profound and interesting lens through which to view the Day One Medicare Advantage-focused company presentations. Perhaps it struck a chord in me because, in a flurry of presentations today touting patient net promoter scores (NPS), that simple statement brings to mind the feelings associated with dignity, respect, self-reliance and, perhaps most importantly, choice – concepts that are hard to quantify into a neat NPS number but which we all recognize and understand. Good health indeed does allow us the chance to be independent, while poor health, economic insufficiency and/or aging can force us into dependence, burden and obligation. I don’t have to take a scientific poll to determine which you personally would prefer.Continue Reading Day 1 Notes from the 41st Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference

Thursday, January 13 was the last day of the virtual J.P. Morgan Annual Healthcare Conference for 2022. And since the conference was virtual, what better topic to start us off today than a consideration of the new Virtual-First trend that surfaced in 2021. We’ll follow that with a dive onto the couch to consider the conference’s mental health offerings and where the behavioral health sector is heading.
Continue Reading Day Four Notes for the 40th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, 2022

Have you been working out recently? We hope so, for today, Day Three of the 40th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, was definitely a day for heavy lifting.  Got a challenge that seems overwhelming? A problem that’s big enough to totally scare other folks? Do you eat triathlons for lunch? Well, then you’re going to like the Day Three companies. Let’s talk about fixing the huge American diabetes problem, providing better healthcare for Medicaid and dual eligible beneficiaries, and helping people beat cancer.  All that, plus a COVID-19 thought exercise…
Continue Reading Day Three Notes for the 40th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, 2022