A Mother’s Heartache This week I am talking to Kelley Howard, Founder, Strategist at DigiVidBIO.com and extraordinary mother to Rachel Rigali who was featured on an earlier show (podcast and the associated blog post) with me and has now sadly died from her cancer. While both Kelley and I are working in healthcare as she describes navigating the system […]
The Comedy Show of Patient Payment (Price Transparency in Healthcare: A Stand-Up Comedy Special) This week I am talking to Ryne Natzke, Chief Revenue Officer, at TrustCommerce, a Sphere company (@SphereCommerce), a cloud-based, software and payments technology company. Ryne and I met some years back and he was kind enough to share some of the details […]
Its the end of the year In the artificially created system of healthcare, thousands if not tens of thousands of people are scurrying to get as much of their healthcare crammed into the last few days left in the year. Is this because they need healthcare and there is some seasonal need? Sadly not – […]
This week I am talking to Andrew Mellin, MD, VP, Chief Medical Information Officer at Surescripts (@surescripts). Andrew is an Internist and Hospitalist who has spent the last 20 years focused on technology innovation in healthcare and is now working to deliver trusted information into the healthcare system and close the loop on medications. From the beginning […]
This week I am talking to Randy Hawkins, MD Chief Medical Officer of Carrum Health (@CarrumHealth). Randy is an anesthesiologist who practiced medicine in the Navy and has a long career in digital enablement, electronic medical records, and meaningful use. He is focused on delivering the triad of healthcare to everyone that brings the appropriate […]
This week I am talking to Branislav Vajdic, CEO and Founder of HeartBeam (@HeartBeami) which has developed a credit card-sized medical-grade heart attack detector that anyone can use anywhere. Branislav shares his personal story that includes his place in history in developing the Solid State technology that we all use and depend on for our storage […]
Data Transparency This week I am talking to Morgane Mouslim, PhD (@MorganeMouslim) a Policy analyst at the Hilltop Institute at the University of Maryland Baltimore County and Morgan Henderson, PhD, (@morghend) a Data Scientist at the Hilltop Institute at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (@UMBC). Together with Sarah Kliff (@sarahkliff) and Josh Katz (@jshkatz) from the NY Times […]
Market Based Medication Pricing Interacting with the healthcare system does nothing for my health and renewing a prescription is yet another painful experience. What about you? What stands in the way of a positive health experience Getting a prescription from the gatekeeper – your overworked primary care physician Insurance who impose arbitrary rules limiting how much […]
Tracking my Vitals I recently was sent wearable device that is now recording a wide range of metrics about me – all at a fraction of the cost of some of the devices on the market. Expect more news on this in the future. In fact I am now able to track on a regular basis […]
Healthcare Data Finally Freed This week I am talking to Jay Sultan, Vice President of Strategy, Healthcare, LexisNexis Risk Solutions, who arrived into healthcare as a technologists and software. His intersection with healthcare started out with personal frustration and disbelief of the lack of sharing of information and systems thinking that was pervasive. The great news […]
The History of US Healthcare This week I am talking with Dr. Christy Ford Chapin, Ph.D., Associate Professor Department of History at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (@UMBC) and author of Ensuring America’s Health: The Public Creation of the Corporate Health Care System that dives deep into the US Health care system tracing the […]
This week I am talking with Jacob Reider, MD (@JacobR), CEO of Alliance For Better Health (@Alliance_PPS), a New York Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) care transformation initiative. Dr. Reider is a family physician who wants the world to be more healthy – a man after my own heart! He previously served as the Deputy National […]
Your Hospital Bill is How Much? I’d like to tell you this is an unusual occurrence but this sorry tale is so common that I’ve come to expect these stories to emerge on a regular basis. This one striking just a little bit closer to home when a friend reached out for help. They were […]
The VA Healthcare System Model Talking with David Shulkin, MD – the former United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs serving under President Donald Trump at the World Healthcare Congress (WHCC19). He shares the early drivers to his long career in medicine that centered on informing and educating patients which permeates throughout his career as […]
The Price We Pay Talking with Marty Makary, MD, Professor of Surgery and Health Policy & Management, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and author of “The Price we Pay – What Broke American Healthcare and How to Fix It” at the World Healthcare Congress (WHCC19). As he puts it the two main issues in our healthcare […]
The Morass of Healthcare in the United States Reading through the litany of challenges in healthcare on a daily basis is depressing. That is unless you are in one of the fortunate groups that have healthcare coverage that actually pays those bills and doesn’t cost so much to be unaffordable. So who manages to get […]
I managed to catch David Mitchell (@DavidP4AD) after his presentation at the Healthcare Costs Innovation Summit, put on by West Health, that took place today at the Ronald Regan Building and International Trade Center in Washington DC. David has Multiple Myeloma – an incurable drug cancer that is treatable by very expensive drugs. Drugs that cost […]
It was a real privilege to catch Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal, (@RosenthalHealth, author of “An American Sickness”) after her presentation at the Healthcare Costs Innovation Summit, put on by West Health, that took place today at the Ronald Regan Building and International Trade Center in Washington DC. I asked her what the average consumer should be […]
Preventative Health for Everyone This week I am talking Joshua Scalar, MD, MPH, Chief Medical Officer for BioIQ where they are working to seamlessly connect people to preventative health testing by removing the friction from the system and allowing as many people as possible to access essential, cost-effective life saving preventative testing services. Josh […]
Am I the only one frustrated with a health system that allows for bills to show up not only as a slow trickle but also an avalanche if you have been unlucky to intersect with a hospital system for anything. But as if that was not bad enough there is no of limitations for medical […]
It’s perverse but the healthcare system in the United States is making you sick. Don’t believe me – then maybe you have a high-end plan with no deductible and full access and no ceiling. But there are not many of those and for the rest of us, I imagine your interaction with the system is […]
