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