Recap from the 17th Annual HBS Health Care Conference

My Journey To Building Healthcare Pizza

Happy Tuesday friends. We’re back at it again, this time to kill two birds with one stone. Over the past few months I’ve heard from friends (new and old) and far-distant online stalkers asking about why I started a blog and what I’m up to? Instead of having the same conversation over-and-over, I decided to just write out the answer. I even include a bonus section in the beginning about how I initially started a career in healthcare. Hope you enjoy.

Is Coronavirus Good or Bad for Telemedicine?

Hello again friends. The entire world is obsessed with talking about coronavirus or COVID-19, so why not me? One thing I’ve noticed is a lot of people speculating how the coronavirus could affect the American healthcare system. Honestly, it remains up in the air at this point, but it’s interesting to talk about. For example, health insurance stocks were hit hard, with the S&P 500 Managed Health Care sector falling more than 15% last week. I suppose this makes rationale sense to some degree. A health plan cannot easily increase their premium revenue for 2020, given that it is a capitated per member per month (PMPM) fee, so their medical loss ratio (MLR) might be higher than expected due to hospitalizations and emergency visits. Later on I’ll discuss whether it’s not just health insurance companies that should be worried…

Can Startups Save Primary Care?

Today, primary care is considered the bees’ knees of value-based care delivery. Instead of being viewed as the punter of the football team, the primary care physician (PCP) has become the quarterback of the patient’s care team, calling plays for both clinical and social services. The entire concept of the accountable care organization (ACO) or patient-centered medical home (PCMH) crumbles without financially- and clinically-aligned PCPs. This sea change has resulted in rapid employment or alignment to health systems, as well as a surge in venture capital being invested into the primary care space.

3 Reasons Why Healthcare Startups Fail

I’ve read countless articles pontificating about why digital health and healthcare startups often fail. Or at the very least, why we rarely see the break-out successes in healthcare enjoyed in the consumer tech or social media space. The realest article was written by Neal Khosla, who likely gave some founders and investors PTSD over his description of the challenges faced. Now I’ve worked in strategy for a hospital, health plan, and healthcare technology company, and still feel somewhat unprepared to offer a bulletproof opinion. However, I’ve received multiple requests to address this topic and therefore will try to give the people what they want. In reality, there are literally a million reasons why healthcare startups fail. Bad founders. Unable to pass FDA approval. Inability to receive patient or physician adoption. No legitimate reimbursement. HIPAA and regulatory barriers. And a ton of other reasons. Rather than boil the ocean, I will now dive into 3 factors that I believe disproportionately take the cake.

Recap from the 17th Annual HBS Health Care Conference

So… I just returned from the 17th Annual Harvard Business School (HBS) Health Care Conference. The running theme of the conference was moving from healthcare to whole person care. Despite the frigid temperatures, the event warmed my heart with attendees full of promise for the healthcare industry. I will admit, it was a bit of a lovefest for Harvard alumni and students, but who can really blame them? They all got into the Michigan of the East… joking. Shout out to the conference organizers, Olivia vonNieda, Bhumika Agarwalla, Jay Thaker, Soltan Bryce, and many others for planning the event! But since many of you could not attend, here’s my breakdown of the conference takeaways.

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