Relentless Health Value

Have you never heard of the Nuka System of Care? If that’s the case, it is an award-winning and really remarkable health system in Alaska. In this 5-minute “An Expert Explains,” Dr. Douglas Eby, medical director over at Nuka, gets directly to the point. A key component to making sure that the people/customers in your plan get the best care is to make sure that they have access to a team of providers who know them well enough to have earned their patient consumers’ trust. Both the trust and the access part of that last sentence are important. Both are needed in spades to reduce downstream costs. The access part might be a little counterintuitive and has a disclaimer or two that Dr. Eby articulates. But, yup, when you restrict access, what winds up happening is that people demand more when they finally get seen. They want their money’s worth, so to speak, and will nab any lab diagnostic or expensive follow-up they can get while they’re there, since they may never have the opportunity or the money or the time to