I had a hard time coming up with the title for this episode. I decided to go with “Integrating Social Determinants of Health Into the Clinical Workflow” because Dr. Ram Raju gives some very actionable advice to this end. I could easily have also called it the Social Determinants of Health Movement. Or the Journey […]

Steve Watson is CFO of a company with 500 employees and also a consultant to other CFOs through his work at Summit Path Group. Steve helps other CFOs buy employee benefits. And this is a noble thing to be doing these days when many CFOs are starting to wake up to the fact that their […]

Alex Azar, who is the Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, came out with a proposal recently that effectively halts the practice of pharma manufacturers paying rebates to pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), Part D plans, and Medicaid managed care organizations. This is a big deal that fundamentally upends the heretofore-not-transparent messy middle of drug pricing. […]

In collaboration with CEEK Enterprises, HealthPrize recently released a new report, “The Pharmaceutical Triple Aim,” about how higher medication adherence improves patient outcomes and lowers health care costs. Pharma companies can be part of adherence solutions, or at least pay for them. But here’s the thing: Pharma—and I don’t want to sound cynical here, but […]

On January 1, 2019, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) mandated that hospitals must publish their chargemasters. In case you’re unfamiliar, hospital chargemasters are the price lists, or the rack rates, that every hospital has in their billing office. If you talk to hospital CFOs, they will tell you that chargemaster prices serve […]