Relentless Health Value

A Wildly Underappreciated Point: Overpaying for Infusions Means Overpaying for Stop-Loss Coverage, With Jake Velie and Keith Hartman, RPh

The Hidden Link Between Expensive Infusions and Rising Stop-Loss Renewal Premiums. Episode 530. When an infusion claim lands on a self-insured plan's high-cost claims r

How Stark Law, Stipends, and Noncompetes Drive Hospital Consolidation, With Eric Bricker, MD

The Chain Reactions Wrecking Healthcare Affordability: Facility Fees, Stark Law, and Noncompetes. Episode 529. Why do hospital facility fees keep pace with inflation wh

Private Equity in Primary Care: What the Data Actually Shows, With Yashaswini Singh, PhD. Episode 528.

Private Equity in Primary Care: Just Another Inflationary Business Model? What Does the Data Actually Show, With Yashaswini Singh, PhD (EP528) Private equity has been b

Why Should a Plan Sponsor Care About the 340B Charity Program? With Shawn Gremminger

How the 340B Drug Discount Program Quietly Raises Costs for Self-Insured Employers. Episode 527. Why should a self-insured employer care about the 340B charity program?

Mark Cuban and Cora Opsahl: The Truth About Pass-Through PBM Contracts and Generic Compliance Ratios

How Discount Theater and Generic Compliance Ratios Quietly Overcharge Patients and Employers. Episode 526. Mark Cuban, co-founder of Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company,

PMPM vs FFS—The Perverse Incentives Plan Sponsors Sometimes Miss, With Cristin Dickerson, MD

Four Questions Plan Sponsors Should Ask Before Choosing PMPM or Fee-for-Service. Episode 525. This episode is a tangent that never made it into the final cut of Stacey

Beating Provider Network Pricing Games by Thinking About Buying Healthcare Like a Manufacturer Supply Chain, With John Quinn

John Quinn, founder and CEO of Wellnecity, joins Stacey Richter in episode 524 for an outtake from their conversation last fall on rethinking how self-insured employers b

The Sleeping Giants of Healthcare—Why Self-insured Employers and Clinicians Keep Missing Each Other, With Suhas Gondi, MD, MBA. EP523

Why Self-Insured Employers and Clinicians Keep Missing Each Other, With Suhas Gondi, MD. The Sleeping Giants of Healthcare: Why Employers and Clinicians Keep Missing Each

How GoodRx Actually Makes Money: PBMs, Cash Prices, and Pharmacy Contracts, With Ge Bai, PhD, CPA (EP522)

Ask Me Anything: How Does GoodRx Actually Make Money, and Who Really Pays for the Discount? Episode 522. A listener asked Stacey Richter a deceptively simple question:

How Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) Became an Over $200 Billion Healthcare Hot Potato, With Andrew Tsang. EP521

RCM: Why Revenue Cycle Management Is Healthcare's $200B Hot Potato, With Andrew Tsang (EP521) How Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) Became an Over $200 Billion Healthcare

Cash-Pay Generic Drugs Are a Functioning Market in Healthcare—Policymakers Beware and Be Careful. EP520

Cash-Pay Generic Drugs and the PBM Spread Pricing Problem (EP520) Cash-pay generic drugs are one of the few corners of US healthcare where a real, functioning market al

Cognitive Atrophy and Referral Incentives Breaking Primary Care, With Lisa Rosenbaum, MD (EP519)

Cognitive Atrophy and Referral Incentives Breaking Primary Care, With Lisa Rosenbaum, MD (EP519) Primary care physicians are leaving traditional practice for concierge

How Do You Explain the Difference Between an ASO Vendor and a TPA? With Claire Brockbank. Episode 518

The ASO vs. TPA Decision That Quietly Costs Self-Funded Employers More What's the real difference between an ASO and a TPA — and why does it matter that self-insured em

Prior Authorizations & Pharma Rebate Contracts — How Financial Motives Keep Generics Off Formularies (EP517)

What if a prior authorization has less to do with your medical need than with how big a rebate check a PBM is collecting on a competing drug? In this solo deep dive — a d

Cash Pay From the Pharma Manufacturer Point of View, With Ophelia Johnson (EP516)

Only about half of new GLP-1 prescriptions got approved for coverage in 2023 — a gap Ophelia Johnson says is why pharma manufacturers started building cash-pay and direct

Self-Insured Employers: SNF Fraud or Perverse Incentives? Understaffing, Gamed STAR Ratings, and Medicare Dollars at Skilled Nursing Facilities with Michelle Cera. EP515

Is it fraud — or is it just a perverse incentive? That question sits at the center of Hunterbrook Media's latest investigation into skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), and

Successfully Suing a Health System for Their Anticompetitive Contracts and Also Collecting Damages for Plan Sponsors and Members, With Matt Cantor. EP514

How the Sutter Health Antitrust Case Opened the Door for Employers and Members to Recover Hospital Overcharge Damages This is Episode 514 (EP514) of Relentless Health V

Revisiting Cunning Anticompetitive Hospital Contracts, With Brennan Bilberry - EP513

The Hospital Contract Playbook: Four Clauses That Turn Market Power Into Higher Prices Across the country, hospital systems have used their growing market power to writ

3 Kinds of Broker/EBC Rent-Seeking Payment Models—A Lawyer's Perspective, With Doug Aldeen. EP512

A Lawyer's Field Guide to Rent-Seeking Broker and EBC Payment Models Brokers and employee benefit consultants often get compensated in ways health plans never fully see

The Perverse Incentive Trap Hidden Inside Value-Based Care — and What to Do About It. EP511

When Risk-Based Payment Becomes Its Own Upcoding Arms Race Medicare Advantage plans get paid more for sicker patients, which is why upcoding became a problem — and now