Relentless Health Value

Lots of talk about direct contracting going on these days. Many of you will be familiar with the term, but in short, direct contracting means when a self-insured employer directly contracts with a provider organization with no payer in the middle of that arrangement. And when I say “employer,” I mean the employer and all their peeps—their TPAs, repricers, other vendors, and consultants. Most of this talk, though, seems to come from the point of view of the employer. It’s super easy to quantify what’s in it for employers. US healthcare costs get blamed for all kinds of things: companies who have lost big global contracts because all of those fringe benefits cost way too much around here. If we’re looking around for a why on that point, let me refer you to last week’s episode (EP366) with Dr. Kevin Schulman entitled “An In-Depth Dissection of Our Dysfunctional Healthcare Benefits Market.” Or the show with Dr. Wayne Jenkins (EP358) about how premium and deductible financial toxicity negatively impacts plan membe