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Eric Hoch — Fri, 28 Jun 2019 16:46:36 +0000

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EP232: Why the Right KPIs Are Vital to Improve Patient/Customer Experience, With Jon Skinner From The Verde Group [Audio]

Eric Hoch — Thu, 20 Jun 2019 11:35:02 +0000

“EP232: Why the Right KPIs Are Vital to Improve Patient/Customer Experience, With Jon Skinner From The Verde Group”
by Stacey Richter

Listen to the audio on my website…

Relentless Health Value
June 20, 2019

It is pretty much inarguable that happy customers are a prerequisite for business success. And that’s true in health care as much as it’s true in every other industry—although in health care, sometimes the customer is also called a patient.

Provider organizations like Cleveland Clinic are really walking the walk when it comes to creating amazing patient/customer experiences; so are other leading provider organizations. But in other segments of the health care industry, maybe they haven’t quite connected the dots between the idea of satisfying customer needs in the abstract and then what that actually looks like relative to a strategic approach.

Let me give you an example—certainly not all pharmaceutical manufacturers: Here’s where key performance indicators, or KPIs, come in. Everything we do should really be derived from what customers need and expect. This could be considered our North Star. And that’s why creating KPIs that focus on how well we are doing delivering on great customer experiences over the long run delivers superior market returns and patient outcomes and patient satisfaction.

My guest today on the podcast is Jon Skinner, who is an executive vice president at The Verde Group. Jon’s message is that your KPIs—if they are done right, in any case—should tell you if you are delivering on a set of customer expectations that are going to lead you to your vision of what success looks like. The Verde Group is a market research firm that specializes in quantifying the customer experience, in case you have not heard of them. I met Jon, by the way, at the PanAgora Pharma CX conference this past spring.

By the way, in this interview, the acronym HCP is used. In case you are unfamiliar, HCP stands for health care professional and it can mean anyone from a physician to a nurse to any other advanced practice clinician.

You can learn more at verdegroup.com.

Jon Skinner is executive vice president with The Verde Group, a customer experience (CX) research consultancy focusing on the financial quantification of customer experiences. Jon works with market leaders across the pharmaceutical and health care space to help them identify the specific customer experiences most consequential to revenue and share growth, and then to develop CX improvements that sustainably grow customer value, build brand equity, and develop customer-centric cultures. Jon started his CX career at Digitas, where he led the Customer Management Group and advised clients on customer value management, loyalty strategy, and channel execution. His general management experience includes executive leadership positions at Excite@Home, Webroot Software, and New England Business Services. Jon holds an MBA from the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

02:48 Quantifying the customer experience and KPIs.
03:19 “What behavior change do you want to stimulate?”
03:29 Two overarching strategic outcomes.
04:41 How a pharma or health care entity correlates a CX improvement to a social outcome.
06:18 “You need to have a thoughtful portfolio.”
08:16 Examples of nonintuitive creativity.
11:53 Conspiring purposefully or by accident to create patient experiences.
14:42 Responding to changing conditions in real time.
15:14 “You can’t go wrong.”
16:06 KPIs are incredibly powerful and potentially damaging when tied to rewards.
16:28 Being thoughtful of compensation programs.
16:51 Why adherence is an important focus.
21:42 Experiences, quantifying experience, KPIs, changing customer experience, and achieving new outcomes.
22:33 “The best place to focus is on what’s going wrong.”

You can learn more at verdegroup.com.

#Quantifying the #customerexperience and #KPIs. Jon Skinner of @RevenueAtRisk discusses in our #podcast. #healthcare #digitalhealth #healthcarepodcast #healthIT #pharma #hcmkg

“What behavior change do you want to stimulate?” Jon Skinner of @RevenueAtRisk discusses in our #podcast. #healthcare #digitalhealth #healthcarepodcast #healthIT #pharma #hcmkg

What are the two overarching #strategicoutcomes Jon Skinner of @RevenueAtRisk sees the most in his client work? Find out in our #podcast. #healthcare #digitalhealth #healthcarepodcast #healthIT #pharma #hcmkg

How do you correlate a CX improvement to a social outcome? Jon Skinner of @RevenueAtRisk explains in our #podcast. #healthcare #digitalhealth #healthcarepodcast #healthIT #pharma #hcmkg

“You need to have a thoughtful portfolio.” Jon Skinner of @RevenueAtRisk discusses in our #podcast. #healthcare #digitalhealth #healthcarepodcast #healthIT #pharma #hcmkg

Where does “nonintuitive” creativity come into play? Jon Skinner of @RevenueAtRisk explains in our #podcast. #healthcare #digitalhealth #healthcarepodcast #healthIT #pharma #hcmkg

#Creating #patientexperience. Jon Skinner of @RevenueAtRisk discusses in our #podcast. #healthcare #digitalhealth #healthcarepodcast #healthIT #pharma #hcmkg

How do you respond to changing conditions in real time? Jon Skinner of @RevenueAtRisk discusses in our #podcast. #healthcare #digitalhealth #healthcarepodcast #healthIT #pharma #hcmkg

“You can’t go wrong.” Jon Skinner of @RevenueAtRisk discusses in our #podcast. #healthcare #digitalhealth #healthcarepodcast #healthIT #pharma #hcmkg

The danger in tying a #KPI to a reward. Jon Skinner of @RevenueAtRisk discusses in our #podcast. #healthcare #digitalhealth #healthcarepodcast #healthIT #pharma #hcmkg

The importance of a thoughtful compensation program. Jon Skinner of @RevenueAtRisk discusses in our #podcast. #healthcare #digitalhealth #healthcarepodcast #healthIT #pharma #hcmkg

Why is #adherence such an important focus? Jon Skinner of @RevenueAtRisk discusses in our #podcast. #healthcare #digitalhealth #healthcarepodcast #healthIT #pharma #hcmkg

“The best place to focus is on what’s going wrong.” Jon Skinner of @RevenueAtRisk discusses in our #podcast. #healthcare #digitalhealth #healthcarepodcast #healthIT #pharma #hcmkg

EP231: Pharmaceutical Contracting, PBMs, Pharmacies, Employers, and the HHS Rebate Proposal: What You Need to Know Now, With AJ Loiacono, CEO of Capital Rx [Audio]

Eric Hoch — Thu, 13 Jun 2019 11:35:01 +0000

“EP231: Pharmaceutical Contracting, PBMs, Pharmacies, Employers, and the HHS Rebate Proposal: What You Need to Know Now, With AJ Loiacono, CEO of Capital Rx”
by Stacey Richter

Listen to the audio on my website…

Relentless Health Value
June 13, 2019

Will the Health and Human Services (HHS) proposal materially impact Pharma’s ability to “pay to play” on pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) formularies? We have that HHS proposal that is now at the stage where they’re trying to figure out how to implement it. What’s at stake right now is that implementation flowchart and who exactly is involved in adjudicating the something like $186 billion in potential charge-backs.

Since any middleman who gets himself involved in any flowchart of this sort takes a buck, there is a massive land-grab opportunity that all these heretofore hidden players are battling over. My guest today, AJ Loiacono, CEO at Capital Rx, can shed light on the hidden complexity of what goes on in the dark middle of a pharma drug transaction and contracting—and that is very relevant right now.

Anthony J. “AJ” Loiacono is a successful entrepreneur, with over 20 years of experience in pharmacy benefits, finance, and software development. As the CEO of Capital Rx, his mission is to change the way pharmacy benefits are priced and administrated in the United States. Prior to Capital Rx, AJ was a co-founder of Truveris, where he served for 8 years as CEO, chief innovation officer, and board member, leading the company to record growth. Prior to Truveris, AJ co-founded SMS Partners, a joint venture with Realogy (RLGY), and in 2010 exited the partnership with a buyout. In his first venture, AJ started Victrix, a supply chain consultancy, and successfully sold the company to Chrysalis Solutions in 2007.

01:42 HHS’s plan to remove safe harbor from the rebates that Pharma pays to PBMs to buy their way onto formularies.
01:53 Creating more transparency by eliminating the anti-kickback.
03:06 What the anti-rebates process flowchart looks like.
03:39 Changing the term from “rebate” to “charge-back.”
04:13 Charge-back at the point of sale rather than post-adjudication.
04:28 How putting the pharmacy in the middle of the transaction changes everything.
05:43 “From a cash flow perspective, this matters.”—Stacey
07:24 “Who is in charge of this payment workflow?”
09:31 “Why the switch?”
11:18 The potential players in the role of paying pharmacies: PBMs, wholesalers, the switches (McKesson), banks/fintech, government contractors.
12:33 The likelihood that this will spill over into commercial medicine.
15:10 Who considers himself a wholesaler?
16:44 Why PBMs want to maintain the status quo, and how that works.
18:37 “Where there’s variability, there’s variable profitability.”
20:25 How do you check that the patient is getting the charge-back amount they deserve?
21:36 Is it still possible to pay to be on a PBM’s formulary?
22:16 Can you ever get away from the pay-to-play formulary?
28:03 “If you think about it, who’s writing the checks at the end of the day?”
31:58 What questions should employers be asking right now?
34:24 The problem with implementing HHS’s primary goal.
35:30 The cause of the inflection point.
37:57 “We want to get back to transparency.”
41:01 “It’s all about optics of price.”
41:17 “Really what we should be focusing on is, ‘What are we solving for?’”
41:47 EP206: Turns Out, High-Deductible Plans Don’t Drive High-Quality, Cost-Effective Health Care, With Ashok Subramanian, CEO and Founder of Centivo.
42:08 Why employers purchase office supply contracts more effectively than pharmacy benefit contracts.
44:33 Capital Rx and what they do.

What’s @HHSGov’s new plan revolving around the #rebates that #pharma pays to #PBMs? AJ Loiacono of @cap_rx explains in our newest #podcast episode. #healthcare #healthtech #digitalhealth #healthcarepodcast #hcmkg

Creating more #transparency by eliminating the anti-kickback. AJ Loiacono of @cap_rx explains in our newest #podcast episode. #healthcare #healthtech #digitalhealth #healthcarepodcast #hcmkg

What would the anti-rebates process look like? AJ Loiacono of @cap_rx explains in our newest #podcast episode. #healthcare #healthtech #digitalhealth #healthcarepodcast #hcmkg

Changing the term from #rebate to #chargeback. AJ Loiacono of @cap_rx explains in our newest #podcast episode. #healthcare #healthtech #digitalhealth #healthcarepodcast #hcmkg

Changing the point at which the #chargeback occurs and how this changes the status quo. AJ Loiacono of @cap_rx explains in our newest #podcast episode. #healthcare #healthtech #digitalhealth #healthcarepodcast #hcmkg

Why putting the #pharmacy in the middle of the transaction changes everything. AJ Loiacono of @cap_rx explains in our newest #podcast episode. #healthcare #healthtech #digitalhealth #healthcarepodcast #hcmkg

“From a cash flow perspective, this matters.” AJ Loiacono of @cap_rx explains in our newest #podcast episode. #healthcare #healthtech #digitalhealth #healthcarepodcast #hcmkg

“Who is in charge of this payment workflow?” AJ Loiacono of @cap_rx explains in our newest #podcast episode. #healthcare #healthtech #digitalhealth #healthcarepodcast #hcmkg

Why #PBMs, #wholesalers, #switches (McKesson), #banks/#fintech, and #governmentcontractors could all potentially pay the #pharmacy. AJ Loiacono of @cap_rx explains in our newest #podcast episode. #healthcare #healthtech #digitalhealth #healthcarepodcast #hcmkg

What’s the likelihood that this will spill over into the commercial side of things? AJ Loiacono of @cap_rx explains in our newest #podcast episode. #healthcare #healthtech #digitalhealth #healthcarepodcast #hcmkg

Why do #PBMs want to maintain the status quo? AJ Loiacono of @cap_rx explains in our newest #podcast episode. #healthcare #healthtech #digitalhealth #healthcarepodcast #hcmkg

“Where there’s variability, there’s variable profitability.” AJ Loiacono of @cap_rx explains in our newest #podcast episode. #healthcare #healthtech #digitalhealth #healthcarepodcast #hcmkg

Can we ever get away from the #paytoplay #formulary? AJ Loiacono of @cap_rx discusses in our newest #podcast episode. #healthcare #healthtech #digitalhealth #healthcarepodcast #hcmkg

EP230: The Best Way to Improve Patient Outcomes and Satisfaction and Reduce Burnout, With John Lynn, Founder of Healthcare Scene, EXPO.health, and HITMC [Audio]

Eric Hoch — Thu, 06 Jun 2019 11:35:52 +0000

“EP230: The Best Way to Improve Patient Outcomes and Satisfaction and Reduce Burnout, With John Lynn, Founder of Healthcare Scene, EXPO.health, and HITMC”
by Stacey Richter

Listen to the audio on my website…

Relentless Health Value
June 6, 2019

Today I’m talking with John Lynn, founder of Healthcare Scene as well as two conferences, EXPO.health and HITMC. If I was going to frame out an overarching theme, I would suggest that it is this: Organizational culture eats strategy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Let’s consider the scope of this statement: Ambulatory patients spend about 84 minutes on average in clinic. Of those, 7-12 minutes are with a physician. Inpatient, I imagine, has probably an even greater ratio. So those 7-12 minutes are hypercritical, of course. I would never suggest anything that minimized the doctor-patient relationship. But how many times has a doctor’s patient grade gone down because of someone nasty at the front desk?

All of the other individuals that a patient meets in the non-doctor portion of their visit, all of the moments that happen in that time frame, all of the care coordination that does or does not happen … all these things have a significant and meaningful impact on not only the patient experience but also patient outcomes.

So, how do you get the front desk and the back office and the middle office and anyone on the phone to recognize the importance to the mission of attaining the quadruple aim of health care? How do you get the janitorial staff to see their role as crucial in the prevention of health care–associated infections (HAIs)? The IT team to feel proud that they have helped with physician burnout by making the tech help doctors instead of slow them down? Or the finance team to consider the financial toxicity of their actions? Or the medical assistants to enter the correct blood pressure or whatever data so our predictive analytics actually work?

The answer to all of these questions points back to strong leadership. It’s building a culture of love, as John Lynn puts it. He means aligning around a mission to do right by patients and give them the best care and outcomes that we can.

Consider this, though: A culture of love can be within one organization, but it can also be cross-organizations. Peers come together and share their experiences and their best practices for the purpose of improving patient care. Then they can take their enthusiasm and passion back to their own organizations. Doing this disperses a culture; it promotes a way of thinking that connects day-to-day drudgery with an endpoint that we all can be proud of.

I don’t think it’s controversial to say that establishing a real culture of love is the best way to achieve patient health in health care, a better patient experience, fewer burned out doctors and nurses, as well as other business results. If you’re interested in how all this connects to patient experience, by the way, listen to EP228 with Julie Rish.

John Lynn is the founder of the HealthcareScene.com network, including HealthcareITToday.com, which has over 12,000 articles, with John having written over half of the articles himself.

John also organizes the first-of-its-kind conference and community focused on marketing to health care: HealthITMarketingConference.com. Plus, he organizes the EXPO.health conference, which focuses on practical health care IT innovation.

John is an adviser to multiple health care IT companies and a highly sought-after keynote speaker. John is deeply involved in social media and, in addition to his blogs, can be found on Twitter at @techguy and @ehrandhit.

03:16 Why putting the burden of patient experience solely on the physician is problematic.
04:10 The biggest influencer of satisfaction in an acute care setting: nurses.
05:05 On the ambulatory side, the biggest point of satisfaction is the front desk worker.
05:22 “We need to look well beyond the doctor if we want to really create a great patient experience.”
05:27 Interview on Don Lee’s HCBiz podcast series on the importance of the janitorial staff.
06:18 How tech can help solve the communication gap between the staff in a health care setting.
06:51 HITMC Conference keynote speaker, Dan Heath, author of five New York Times bestsellers, including The Power of Moments.
07:53 Creating “peak moments” in the patient experience.
08:26 “I wonder if trying to solve all the problems of patients’ [experience] isn’t the wrong strategy.”
08:53 Are organizations actually asking how they can improve the patient experience?
09:22 How administrative overhead is keeping organizations and physicians from focusing on improving the patient experience.
10:38 The trend across organizations that improves patient experience is leadership.
11:35 How the last touchpoint has a significant impact on the patient experience.
12:05 How does an organization communicate an understanding of the importance of the whole staff team?
13:23 The services organizations need to provide in order to guarantee patient payment.
14:07 The short-term and long-term benefits of focusing on the patient experience.
14:55 Understanding the cost associated with the care and aligning the price of things with the cost. University of Utah as an example of attempting to do this.
16:44 “The consumers aren’t going to wait.”
16:50 Convenience vs quality, and how this is going to affect health care.
17:29 Creating a culture of love.
17:40 How EXPO.health is not so much a conference as a community with a passion for using technology to improve health care.
17:51 How bringing together every side of health care professionals to share their ideas and successes is the real answer to improving the patient experience.
18:56 “How do we get those innovations shared?”
19:02 The keynote speakers at the upcoming EXPO.health: Ivo Nelson and Dana Sellers.
21:39 “How much are you infusing the mission of your organization to improve patient care?”
22:36 “If you can’t create a mission in health care, then you probably shouldn’t work in health care.”
26:29 How EXPO.health is affecting change and transformation.
27:08 Providing practical innovations to improve patient care.
29:40 EXPO.health this year is July 31–August 2 in Boston at the Renaissance Boston.

Why is putting the burden of #patientexperience solely on the #physician problematic? @techguy of @healthcarescene and @HealthITExpo explains in our #healthcare #podcast. #HITsm #HITMC #hcldr #HIMSS19 #digitalhealth #healthtech #hcmkg

Who is the biggest #influencer of satisfaction in an #acutecare setting? @techguy of @healthcarescene and @HealthITExpo discusses in our #healthcare #podcast. #HITsm #HITMC #hcldr #HIMSS19 #digitalhealth #healthtech #hcmkg #nurses

Who is the biggest #influencer of satisfaction on the #ambulatory side of #care? @techguy of @healthcarescene and @HealthITExpo discusses in our #healthcare #podcast. #HITsm #HITMC #hcldr #HIMSS19 #digitalhealth #healthtech #hcmkg

@techguy of @healthcarescene and @HealthITExpo talks about an interview with @dflee30 of @The_HCBiz over the importance of janitorial staff in a #care setting. #healthcare #podcast #HITsm #HITMC #hcldr #HIMSS19 #digitalhealth #healthtech #hcmkg

How could #healthtech help the communication gap between #healthstaff? @techguy of @healthcarescene and @HealthITExpo explains in our #healthcare #podcast. #HITsm #HITMC #hcldr #HIMSS19 #digitalhealth #hcmkg

How do you create #peakmoments in the #patientexperience? @techguy of @healthcarescene and @HealthITExpo explains in our #healthcare #podcast. #HITsm #HITMC #hcldr #HIMSS19 #digitalhealth #healthtech #hcmkg

Are organizations actually asking how they can improve the #patientexperience? @techguy of @healthcarescene and @HealthITExpo explains in our #healthcare #podcast. #HITsm #HITMC #hcldr #HIMSS19 #digitalhealth #healthtech #hcmkg

How is administrative overhead keeping #healthorgs and #physicians from improving the #patientexperience? @techguy of @healthcarescene and @HealthITExpo explains in our #healthcare #podcast. #HITsm #HITMC #hcldr #HIMSS19 #digitalhealth #healthtech #hcmkg

What’s #leadership got to do with improving #patientexperience? @techguy of @healthcarescene and @HealthITExpo explains in our #healthcare #podcast. #HITsm #HITMC #hcldr #HIMSS19 #digitalhealth #healthtech #hcmkg

How do #healthleaders communicate the importance of the whole #healthteam? @techguy of @healthcarescene and @HealthITExpo explains in our #healthcare #podcast. #HITsm #HITMC #hcldr #HIMSS19 #digitalhealth #healthtech #hcmkg

How does creating a #cultureoflove improve the #patientexperience? @techguy of @healthcarescene and @HealthITExpo explains in our #healthcare #podcast. #HITsm #HITMC #hcldr #HIMSS19 #digitalhealth #healthtech #hcmkg

Providing practical #innovations to improve the #patientexperience—@techguy of @healthcarescene and @HealthITExpo explains in our #healthcare #podcast. #HITsm #HITMC #hcldr #HIMSS19 #digitalhealth #healthtech #hcmkg

EP229: One Core Skill All Successful Start-up Teams Possess, With Alex Fair, Managing Partner at MedStartr Ventures and CEO of MedStartr [Audio]

Eric Hoch — Thu, 30 May 2019 11:35:25 +0000

“EP229: One Core Skill All Successful Start-up Teams Possess, With Alex Fair, Managing Partner at MedStartr Ventures and CEO of MedStartr”
by Stacey Richter

Listen to the audio on my website…

Relentless Health Value
May 30, 2019

No one denies that it’s a tough world out there for health start-ups. Finding a customer is tough, financial models are tough to figure out, operationalizing is tough. But the same is true for those other health care stakeholders attempting to purchase and implement the innovations start-ups are creating. Here’s another unassailable truth: Everything is just easier within a supportive community. You gain feedback, mentorship, networking opportunities, and maybe just a venue to sob into your beers together.

Today I speak with Alex Fair, managing partner at MedStartr Ventures and CEO of MedStartr. MedStartr is a community for health tech entrepreneurs that also provides venture capital to crowdsourced contest winners.

And spoiler alert, the one core skill all successful start-up teams possess is listening. The ability to listen.

You can learn more at medstartr.vc, medstartr.com, and medstartr.nyc, or call Medstartr at 530-MedStartr.

Alex Fair is the founder and CEO of MedStartr. He originally trained as a scientist, working in physics, then cancer, and finally in heart disease research. In the 1990s he had an idea for a company that took off, so he finished off his last paper and came into the world of business. MedStartr is his seventh start-up. Other creations include Expert-Med, Scanbuy.com, FairCareMD.com, MPADS.com, Dr1st.org, and the Pinnacle Consulting Group, as well as dozens of corporate entities and products for clients and employers over the years. Alex lives in Long Island, New York, and is the proud dad of two wonderful kids.

01:33 What is an ecosystem program, and how does Alex use that to identify companies that are going to change the world?
01:55 Eugene Borukhovich, Global Head, G4A Digital health at Bayer, and Alex’s friend who got him involved in the ecosystem model.
02:31 How the Health 2.0 New York community led to the start of accelerators.
03:03 The Health Tech Pilot Program—getting hospitals to the table for start-ups.
05:07 “The people make up the ecosystem.”
05:22 What success looks like to Alex.
05:53 “Digital health … but it’s really just about health.”
07:01 The number one thing Alex wants to see from a start-up founder is hustle.
07:44 Jen Ohlson, Founder and President of Interactive Health Technologies – a successful start-up founder who really hustled.
09:35 MedStartr Ventures “crowd challenges.”
12:24 “As health care innovation geeks, we don’t expect to do that.”
14:42 “It’s innovate or die.”
16:14 Programs that are solving problems from the internal and the external.
17:16 EP222 with Naomi Fried.
17:23 The worst advice Alex hears.
18:51 Michelle Longmire, MD, CEO of Medable – a great implementer and executor.
19:30 The common denominator between great innovators and founders.
24:18 How Mount Sinai Ventures does investment well.
24:29 Alex’s proudest MedStartr graduates: Sonny Vu of Misfit, Regina Holliday of The Walking Gallery and Cinderblocks, Fred Trotter and Ashish Patel of CareSet, Care+Wear, Twiage, Alertgy.

You can learn more at medstartr.vc, medstartr.com, and
medstartr.nyc, or call Medstartr at 530-MedStartr.

What is an #ecosystemprogram? @alexbfair of @MedStartr explains in our newest #podcast episode. #healthcare #digitalhealth #healthtech #healthstartup #startup #hcmkg #healthcarepodcast

How do you identify companies that are going to change the world? @alexbfair of @MedStartr explains in our newest #podcast episode. #healthcare #digitalhealth #healthtech #healthstartup #startup #hcmkg #healthcarepodcast

What is an #ecosystemprogram? @alexbfair of @MedStartr explains in our newest #podcast episode. #healthcare #digitalhealth #healthtech #healthstartup #startup #hcmkg #healthcarepodcast

How did Health 2.0 go from a community in NYC to the start of accelerators? @alexbfair of @MedStartr explains in our newest #podcast episode. #healthcare #digitalhealth #healthtech #healthstartup #startup #hcmkg #healthcarepodcast

What is the #healthtechpilot program? @alexbfair of @MedStartr explains in our newest #podcast episode. #healthcare #digitalhealth #healthtech #healthstartup #startup #hcmkg #healthcarepodcast

How is a #pilotprogram for #healthtechstartups getting #hospitals to the table? @alexbfair of @MedStartr explains in our newest #podcast episode. #healthcare #digitalhealth #healthtech #healthstartup #startup #hcmkg #healthcarepodcast

What does startup success look like? @alexbfair of @MedStartr explains in our newest #podcast episode. #healthcare #digitalhealth #healthtech #healthstartup #startup #hcmkg #healthcarepodcast

What’s the number one thing to see in a #startupfounder? @alexbfair of @MedStartr explains in our newest #podcast episode. #healthcare #digitalhealth #healthtech #healthstartup #startup #hcmkg #healthcarepodcast

Why is hustle the most important thing for a #startupfounder? @alexbfair of @MedStartr explains in our newest #podcast episode. #healthcare #digitalhealth #healthtech #healthstartup #startup #hcmkg #healthcarepodcast

What is a #Medstartr #crowdchallenge? @alexbfair of @MedStartr explains in our newest #podcast episode. #healthcare #digitalhealth #healthtech #healthstartup #startup #hcmkg #healthcarepodcast

How are some programs solving problems from the internal and external? @alexbfair of @MedStartr explains in our newest #podcast episode. #healthcare #digitalhealth #healthtech #healthstartup #startup #hcmkg #healthcarepodcast

What’s the worst start-up advice @alexbfair of @MedStartr hears? He explains in our newest #podcast episode. #healthcare #digitalhealth #healthtech #healthstartup #startup #hcmkg #healthcarepodcast

What’s the common denominator between great #innovators and start-up #founders? @alexbfair of @MedStartr explains in our newest #podcast episode. #healthcare #digitalhealth #healthtech #healthstartup #startup #hcmkg #healthcarepodcast

Liked this week’s #podcast with @alexbfair of @MedStartr? Want to learn about more ways to find #success in #innovation? Listen to EP222 with @NaomiFried of #Health #Innovation #Strategies. #digitalhealth #healthcare #healthinnovation #hcmkg

INBW22: A Very Practical Opioid Alternatives Program for Employers [Audio]

Eric Hoch — Thu, 23 May 2019 11:35:23 +0000

“INBW22: A Very Practical Opioid Alternatives Program for Employers”
by Stacey Richter

Listen to the audio on my website…

Relentless Health Value
May 23, 2019

Let’s talk about the opioid crisis for a moment. When we say the words “opioids crisis,” as a general broad stroke, many people immediately picture somebody who lives under a bridge. But that actually wouldn’t be your average profile of someone with a substance misuse/opioid problem. The average profile of someone with an opioid/substance misuse profile looks exactly like an employee. In fact, 75% of adults up to the age of 64 with a misuse issue are in the workforce. And the cost to an employer of someone addicted to a long-acting opioid such as Oxycontin is $117,000, on average, if you count the medical spend and loss of productivity. My name is Stacey Richter. I am the host of the Relentless Health Value podcast and co-president of a cause-driven organization called QC-Health^®. We started QC-Health^® to do what we can to improve the state of health care in this country today, which is, by the way, the mission of this podcast as well.

You can learn more at QC-MyMeds.org.

When not hosting the show, Stacey is co-president of Aventria Health Group, a marketing agency and consultancy. Aventria specializes in helping pharmaceutical, employer, pharmacy, and health system clients improve patient outcomes by creating and leveraging collaborations with other health care organizations. For more than 20 years, Stacey has innovated better-coordinated health solutions benefiting all stakeholders and, most of all, the patient.

01:46 One of the programs QC-Health^® is sponsoring—QC-MyMeds.
02:10 SinfoníaRx—one of the most well-respected medication therapy management (MTM) providers in the country.
02:23 What QC-MyMeds essentially is.
02:55 Why QC-Health^® thought it was important to take a proven program to even the smallest employer.
03:57 How QC-Health^® aims to helper smaller employers.
04:08 The QC-MyMeds approach.
05:51 “This program does not aim to boil the ocean.”
06:02 “The problem with opioids is that they change your brain chemistry.”
06:29 Connecting the dots between service programs and employees who need them.
07:01 Eliminating barriers for small employers.
08:49 Stacey presented QC-MyMeds at the World Health Care Conference.

You can learn more at QC-MyMeds.org.

Our host, Stacey Richter of @aventriaHG, talks about the cause-driven #QCHealth organization and the program they’re sponsoring, #QCMyMeds. #healthcare #digitalhealth #hcmkg #healthcarepodcast

Stacey talks about #QCHealth, #QCMyMeds, and @SinfoniaRx in our latest #inbetweenisode. #healthcare #hcmkg #digitalhealth #healthcarepodcast

What is #QCMyMeds? Stacey explains in our latest #healthcarepodcast episode, where she discusses #QCHealth, a cause-driven organization tackling the #opioidcrisis. #healthcare #hcmkg #digitalhealth

Why #QCHealth aims to help even the smallest #employers. #digitalhealth #healthcare #QCMyMeds #hcmkg

How #QCHealth is eliminating barriers for #smallemployers to tackle the #opioidcrisis in #healthcare. #digitalhealth #hcmkg #healthcarepodcast

What’s the #QCMyMeds approach? Stacey explains in our latest #healthcarepodcast. #QCHealth #healthcare #podcast #digitalhealth #hcmkg

EP228: How to Figure Out What Patients Really Want, With Julie Rish, PhD, From the Cleveland Clinic [Audio]

Eric Hoch — Thu, 16 May 2019 11:35:58 +0000

“EP228: How to Figure Out What Patients Really Want, With Julie Rish, PhD, From the Cleveland Clinic”
by Stacey Richter

Listen to the audio on my website…

Relentless Health Value
May 16, 2019

There’s a great video of Steve Jobs responding to an audience question that is, at a minimum, let’s just say strident. Jobs kind of ignores the aggressive nature of the query and offers a thoughtful response which is super relevant to health care. He says, “One of the things I’ve always found is that you’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology. You can’t start with the technology and try to figure out where you’re going to try to sell it.”

I don’t know about you, but I find this quote over-the-top relevant in health care. In health care, when we contemplate changing the workflow or integrating some technology or building some technology or whatever else we’re up to, how many times are we starting from the perspective of the patient or member? How often is the patient the “why” behind “why are we prioritizing this?”

So many have echoed this pretty much exact same message, including Joe Selby, MD, MPH, in EP225. Dr. Selby heads up PCORI, and they have validated studies showing that patient-centered care is more cost effective and has better outcomes than care that isn’t. Roy Rosin, who leads innovation at the University of Pennsylvania Medicine, put it succinctly in EP139: “Love the problem, not the solution. “Another quote I’ve heard from someone who would know is, “Companies with the business processes and practices in place to match the preferences of each individual customer will have the best chance of succeeding.”

I wonder, in the health care industry, how many meetings go on about what patients want with no patients in the meetings and no real consideration to that end. As a data point, probably twice a week I hear of a new program, product, service, device, digital something or other that has zero or only a few patients using it because only after development did anyone check with patients what they think about the thing. And then sometimes the patient gets blamed and labeled nonadherent to something they didn’t want in the first place.

Probably listeners to this particular podcast are sensitive to this issue and working within your organizations to alter this counterproductive lack of real patient experience contemplation. So let me introduce my guest today, Julie Rish. Julie is director of best practice in the office of patient experience at the Cleveland Clinic. And Julie definitely has some best practices to share about how to level up patient experience and include patient points of view. I don’t need to tell you that the Cleveland Clinic is well known to achieve some of the highest patient experience scores around, so I, for one, hung on her every word.

I met Julie, by the way, at the PanAgora CX conference this past March.

You can connect with Julie on Twitter at @julie_rish.

Julie Rish, PhD, is a clinical psychologist for the Bariatric and Metabolic Institute at the Cleveland Clinic. She graduated from Loma Linda University and completed her training at Henry Ford Health Sciences Center and the Cleveland Clinic. Presently, she is working in pre-surgical evaluation, pre- and post-surgical treatment, and clinical research in bariatric surgery. Her research interests include treatment outcomes, health behavior change, and women’s health. Currently, she is conducting collaborative research on pelvic floor disorders, binge eating intervention outcomes, the impact of past suicide attempts on bariatric outcome, and treatment outcomes in a bariatric population.

03:37 Shared decision making and why it matters.
04:58 Collaboratively coming up with a plan—how “shared decision making” might not be the best terminology.
05:43 “Because that’s who we are.”
07:12 Affecting culture and making change no matter what that culture is.
07:57 “Let’s just get to the source.”
10:38 The types of programs that the Cleveland Clinic partners with patients on.
11:10 The moment the Cleveland Clinic realized patients needed to be more involved.
13:16 How documenting the patient experience changes the patient experience.
18:40 Treating the medical bill as patient education.
21:05 What does being patient-centric actually look and feel like?
21:58 Where the Cleveland Clinic is gathering its metrics and data from.
23:49 “If I can’t communicate with you, there is a risk to the quality and the safety and the experience of this.”
26:10 “Sometimes it’s just about perception.”
27:32 How providing exceptional care is how the Cleveland Clinic draws in patients.
30:35 “What are the different lenses that we’re seeing this through?”

You can connect with Julie on Twitter at @julie_rish.

@julie_rish of @ClevelandClinic discusses #shareddecisionmaking and why it matters. #healthcare #hcmkg #digitalhealth #patientcentricity

Why does @julie_rish of @ClevelandClinic shy away from #shareddecisionmaking as a term? Find out in our latest #podcast episode. #healthcare #hcmkg #digitalhealth #patientcentricity

How to affect change, no matter the company culture. @julie_rish of @ClevelandClinic discusses. #healthcare #hcmkg #digitalhealth #patientcentricity

What types of programs does @julie_rish of @ClevelandClinic partner with #patients on? Find out in our newest #podcast episode. #healthcare #hcmkg #digitalhealth #patientcentricity

When was the moment that @julie_rish of @ClevelandClinic realized the importance of #patientinvolvement? Find out in our #podcast episode. #healthcare #hcmkg #digitalhealth #patientcentricity

How does documenting the #patientexperience change the #patient experience? @julie_rish of @ClevelandClinic explains. #healthcare #hcmkg #digitalhealth #patientcentricity

Why you should treat the #medicalbill like an opportunity for #patienteducation. @julie_rish of @ClevelandClinic explains. #healthcare #hcmkg #digitalhealth #patientcentricity

What does being #patientcentric actually look and feel like? @julie_rish of @ClevelandClinic explains. #healthcare #hcmkg #digitalhealth #patientcentricity

Where should you be gathering #healthdata and #healthmetrics from? @julie_rish of @ClevelandClinic discusses. #healthcare #hcmkg #digitalhealth #patientcentricity

Providing exceptional care to draw in #patients. @julie_rish of @ClevelandClinic discusses. #healthcare #hcmkg #digitalhealth #patientcentricity

EP227: What Should Pharma Be Doing Right Now About the HHS Proposal to Effectively Curtail PBM Rebates?, With Kuo Tong, Managing Director at Navigant [Audio]

Eric Hoch — Thu, 09 May 2019 11:35:11 +0000

“EP227: What Should Pharma Be Doing Right Now About the HHS Proposal to Effectively Curtail PBM Rebates?, With Kuo Tong, Managing Director at Navigant”
by Stacey Richter

Listen to the audio on my website…

Relentless Health Value
May 9, 2019

If you don’t know the nuts and bolts of the current Health and Human Services (HHS) proposal to nix Pharma’s ability to pay pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) rebates, then it’s possible you might want to listen to EP216 with Chris Sloan first. In this episode, we don’t talk much about the impact of the HHS proposal on patient premiums or drug costs. That’s EP216. What we do talk about today is the impact on pharmaceutical companies. We also discuss the drug-buying transaction. Kuo Tong is my guest today. Kuo is a managing director in the life sciences practice of Navigant, focusing on how pharma companies interact with insurance companies and get reimbursement for their drugs. And that’s actually the burning question we aim to answer today: Will Pharma’s interactions with and reimbursement from insurance companies change after this proposed HHS rule goes into effect, assuming it goes into effect? We also talk about what Pharma could and should be doing right now to improve the odds of a smooth transition into a new contracting model.

You can learn more at navigant.com, connect with Kuo on Twitter at @NavigantHealth, or email him at kuo.tong@navigant.com.

Kuo Tong is a managing director in the life sciences practice of Navigant and oversees its US Market Access Center of Excellence. He joined the firm in November 2017 to lead a team focused on health economics, pricing, and market access engagements. Prior to joining Navigant, Kuo was the CEO of Quorum Consulting, headquartered in San Francisco, for 21 years. During that time, Quorum was a leading firm helping clients solving policy and access issues with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS); Blue Cross Blue Shield, commercial, and managed care plans; and other payers and health care delivery systems. Prior to founding Quorum, Kuo was a senior associate at Health Technology Associates (now known as Covance), located in Washington, DC. Prior to entering the consulting field, Kuo was active in clinical and health services research at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Neuropsychiatric Institute. Kuo holds his master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

01:54 HHS and better market results as far as Pharma is concerned.
02:56 “Entitlement benefit.”
03:49 How would justifying pharma prices change company behavior?
05:47 “Get back to the business of innovation.”
06:13 Sacrificing broad indications for narrow ones.
08:14 “Branded Pharma raises the price of their branded product ahead of competition.”
08:44 “We’re playing by the rules of the road.”
09:09 “I think we have to … start thinking about a new world order.”
09:34 High-valuation dropping and other trade-offs for a better business model.
10:23 How do you make life science purchasing a win-win?
12:42 Pay to play, PBMs, and short-term vs long-term pharma solutions.
17:15 Are specialty drugs and rare disease drugs the future of Pharma?
17:58 Medicare Part D and Medicaid benefits.
23:50 “The Part D plan itself … for better or worse, they are not the advocate for the patient.”
25:00 Could other contracting models be on the rise?
29:23 What Navigant Health does and what Kuo does over at Navigant Health.

You can learn more at navigant.com, connect with Kuo on Twitter at @NavigantHealth, or email him at kuo.tong@navigant.com.

EP226: Is the Surprise Billing Gold Rush Screeching to a Halt?, With Devon Herrick, PhD, Health Economist and Policy Analyst [Audio]

Eric Hoch — Thu, 02 May 2019 11:35:45 +0000

“EP226: Is the Surprise Billing Gold Rush Screeching to a Halt?, With Devon Herrick, PhD, Health Economist and Policy Analyst”
by Stacey Richter

Listen to the audio on my website…

Relentless Health Value
May 2, 2019

Surprise billing … it sounds like so much fun. Who doesn’t love a surprise? Except receiving a surprise bill is zero fun. In case you’ve been out of the loop on this, surprise billing is when the patient, unbeknownst to them, racks up out-of-network charges, usually at a hospital. The patient may have done absolutely everything right—selected an in-network hospital, got all their tests preapproved—and then, wham! A month or a year later, the patient gets a bill that could be a few hundred dollars or a few hundred thousand dollars, usually from someone they’ve never heard of. And that’s an important point. The vast majority of physicians out there, especially the ones with relationships with patients, don’t surprise bill.

Unfortunately, surprise billing isn’t a one-off random event: 54% of Americans have received a surprise bill. And that 54% of Americans … not happy about it. So unhappy, as a matter of fact, that lots of legislation is pending to curtail the practice.

Surprise billing has been identified as a solid barrier to access and to patients who need care getting it. Patients fear the looming threat of having their bank account emptied out no matter how diligent and smart and well insured they are. Why does surprise billing—or balance billing, as it’s usually called by those engaging in it—continue when it’s so clearly a problem for patients?

If you read a recent Brookings Institute report, you’d have discovered that surprise billing is a lucrative gambit for some, certainly not all, hospitals. It’s especially lucrative in, but not limited to, emergency rooms (ERs). So much money can be raked in from incapacitated or, at a minimum, injured patients, in fact, that certain ER-staffing companies have turned surprise billing into a business model. If you follow me on LinkedIn, you’d know that I wrote an article about this on Medium recently.

Today I speak with Devon Herrick, PhD, who is an expert in surprise billing. Devon is a health care economist and public policy analyst who has authored many articles on surprise billing. You’ll find some links in the show notes. Devon is also an adviser to the Heartland Institute, which is a free-market think tank. I find it incredibly thought provoking that a free-market think tank, for reasons we discuss in this podcast, finds unfettered market-driven surprise billing as egregious as the most progressive socialists do. Handshaking across aisles everywhere.

If you’re a hospital or insurance carrier executive, what are you doing right now in light of all this public attention and legislation? I hope your response includes actions to protect your patients—and not just an industry-centric lobbying effort.

You can learn more and connect with Devon on Twitter at @DevonHerrick or on Facebook at Devon Herrick.

Devon M. Herrick, PhD, is a health economist and former hospital accountant. He is currently a health policy adviser for the Chicago-based Heartland Institute. Dr. Herrick worked for the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) for 21 years until it ceased operations in 2017. He also served two terms as chair of the Health Economics Roundtable of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE).

Dr. Herrick focuses on health insurance issues, including state health care regulations, federal health reform, managed care, Medicare, Medicaid, and the uninsured. He also researches issues such as consumer-driven health care, telemedicine, medical tourism, pharmaceutical economics, and emerging trends in retail medicine.

While with NCPA, Dr. Herrick authored more than 100 studies and papers based on his research. Dr. Herrick is a sought-after speaker on health policy issues and is quoted widely in the press, including on radio and television. He has testified before Congress and numerous state legislative hearings and meetings. His articles and comments have appeared in hundreds of newspapers across the country. He is a coauthor, with John C. Goodman and Gerald L. Musgrave, of Lives at Risk: Single-Payer National Health Insurance Around the World.

Dr. Herrick began his career in health care as a staff accountant with Baylor University Medical Center (Dallas) in 1986. He later transferred to Baylor Center for Restorative Care, where he worked as an accounting manager.

Prior to joining NCPA, Dr. Herrick was a research assistant at the Bruton Center for Development Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD). The Bruton Center integrates geographic information systems, spatial analysis, and exploratory data analysis in the social sciences, applying research on trends, forces, and public policy. While a teaching assistant, Dr. Herrick also taught the economics of health at UTD.

While pursuing a doctorate in 1995, Herrick came to the National Center for Policy Analysis as a policy intern. He subsequently became manager of information systems and later the research manager. Dr. Herrick was a senior fellow at NCPA from 2003 to 2017.

03:33 How common surprise billing, or balance billing, actually is.
03:55 The statistics behind how pervasive surprising bills are.
04:49 Balance billing vs business law.
05:55 Why patients fear hospitals.
06:27 How transparency can solve the problem of balance bills.
06:50 “If there’s no meeting of the minds, it’s not an enforceable contract.”
07:27 How to solve surprise billing in ERs.
09:32 The tipping point of surprise bills.
10:32 The negative incentive in stopping this problem.
11:11 “Health care is similar to a gold rush.”
13:26 Is there spillover into other financial models?
13:50 What doctors think of surprise billing.
16:14 How surprise billing became a default practice to begin with.
19:50 “Hospitals can wield more power than they realize.”
21:07 How balance billing affects insurance carriers.
22:15 Doctor fees vs hospital fees.
23:28 “Someone’s prices are going up.”
24:09 “It’s partly based on opportunity.”
26:00 Devon’s advice to insurance companies on eliminating balance billing.
31:18 Devon’s consulting practice.

You can learn more and connect with Devon on Twitter at @DevonHerrick or on Facebook at Devon Herrick.

EP225: Can We Afford to Make Health Care Patient-centric?, With Joe Selby, MD, MPH, Executive Director of PCORI [Audio]

Eric Hoch — Thu, 25 Apr 2019 11:35:28 +0000

“EP225: Can We Afford to Make Health Care Patient-centric?, With Joe Selby, MD, MPH, Executive Director of PCORI”
by Stacey Richter

Listen to the audio on my website…

Relentless Health Value
April 25, 2019

It turns out, patient-centric care that produces outcomes patients care about is usually less expensive than care that is not. The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), an independent nonprofit, nongovernmental organization in Washington, DC, was authorized by Congress in 2010.

PCORI was established to fund research that can help patients make better-informed decisions, guided by clinicians, payers, and others. In other words, help nudge health care into a patient-centric place, for the good of everyone involved in a quadruple aim sort of way. Since December 2012, PCORI has funded hundreds of studies that compare health care options to learn which work best, given patients’ circumstances and preferences.

Today I speak with Dr. Joe Selby, executive director of PCORI.

You can learn more at PCORI.org.

Joe V. Selby, MD, MPH, is the executive director of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). A family physician, clinical epidemiologist, and health services researcher, Dr. Selby has more than 35 years of experience in patient care, research, and administration. He is responsible for identifying strategic issues and opportunities for PCORI and implementing and administering programs authorized by the PCORI Board of Governors.

Dr. Selby joined PCORI from Kaiser Permanente Northern California, where he was director of the division of research for 13 years and oversaw a department of more than 50 investigators and 500 research staff members working on more than 250 ongoing studies. He was with Kaiser Permanente for 27 years. An accomplished researcher, Dr. Selby has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed articles and continues to conduct research, primarily in the areas of diabetes outcomes and quality improvement. His publications cover a spectrum of topics, including effectiveness studies of colorectal cancer screening strategies; treatment effectiveness, population management, and disparities in diabetes mellitus; primary care delivery; and quality measurement. Dr. Selby was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine in 2009 and was a member of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality study section for Health Care Quality and Effectiveness from 1999 to 2003.

A native of Fulton, Missouri, Dr. Selby received his MD from Northwestern University and his MPH from the University of California–Berkeley. He was a commissioned officer in the Public Health Service Corps from 1976 to 1983 and received the Commissioned Officer’s Award in 1981.

01:34 Can payers afford to make health care patient-centric?
01:57 “If you make care more patient-centric … you actually see decreases in utilization.”
02:30 Shared decision making.
05:57 “What gets in the way of implementing good evidence?”
06:05 A study involving community health workers.
07:24 Default care and back surgery.
10:28 “There’s just a lot of habits like that in clinical care that aren’t backed up by evidence and can be undone with good evidence.”
11:36 “Where would you push the randomization?”
12:07 “We are trying to conduct practical research that really helps clinicians and patients make decisions differently.”
12:34 How Dr. Selby figures out what the patients want and what outcomes to focus on.
13:00 Looking for evidence gaps.
14:47 What PCORnet is and what they’re doing.
16:28 “To do really good quality research, you have to be able to link the data from health systems … to data from claims.”
17:46 “We’re asking questions that matter to them, to their bottom line, and to their patients.”
18:07 What the main goal of PCORnet is—what or where?
19:59 Giving and getting data as a health system.
21:33 Studies that have come from PCORI’s queries.
25:02 “It’s very important that the systems … appreciate that PCORnet is active in their midst.”
25:41 “It’s hopefully a culture-changer, driving toward more collaboration and toward … finding common ground between people who are asking purely clinical questions and people who are asking the more practical questions.”
26:01 What frustrates Dr. Selby the most.
28:12 Turn the Ship Around!—a book about short-term evaluation and short-term results vs long-term change.