Executives from payers, health systems, FQHCs and more have weighed in on a simple question: "If you were advising a presidential campaign right now on healthcare, what would you put at the top of the agenda?"
The question was posed Jan. 30 by Sachin Jain, MD, president and CEO of SCAN Group.
How eight healthcare executives answered:
Frank Byrne, MD. President Emeritus at SSM Health St. Mary's Hospital (Madison, Wis.): Access and affordability are currently shameful. Value-based/outcome-based payments to providers. Reverse the billions that are being siphoned out of the healthcare system for administrative costs, commercial insurers, and corporate bloat. Incentivize prevention, addressing social determinants, behavioral health and addiction.
Vivek Garg, MD. Chief Medical Officer and SVP of Primary Care at Humana: Radical shift to outcomes as the primary dimension for success in healthcare.
Gurdeep Sareen, PharmD. Regional Director of Pharmacy and Population Health at Optum Tri-State: A primary care-focused healthcare system, drug price negotiations with Medicare (more than the Inflation Reduction Act), improved data sharing (and reducing antiquated barriers to it) and using non-physician providers at the top of their license.
Zinkeng Asonganyi. Director of Ambulatory Pharmacy and Infusion Services at University of Texas Medical Branch (Galveston): PBM/vertical integration and its impact on healthcare affordability.
Samuel Peprah. Director of Market Access Strategy and Analytics at Pfizer: The digital divide and its impact on access to care.
Amy Berk, MSN, RN. Director of Population Health at Microsoft: Nursing reimbursement models.
Stephanie Sudikoff, MD. Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics and Pediatric Critical Care at Yale University School of Medicine (New Haven, Conn.): Distinguish actual cost of care from charges. We won't ever successfully drive down costs if we don't know what they are.
Matthew Swain, DO. Chief Medical Officer at MCHC Health Centers (Ukiah, Calif.): Delinking volume from profit. Stop making clinicians sprint through a blur of faces every day. This destroys relationships before they even get started. It results in more quantity and less quality of care, heavy reliance on flawed heuristics to make snap judgements about people we don't know, and simultaneous burnout of clinicians and disengagement of patients. Patients who then sue because they do not feel cared about. It's all connected.