Healthcare is Hard: A Podcast for Insiders

CVS Health operates one of healthcare’s largest consumer platforms, with businesses spanning health insurance, pharmacy benefits, retail pharmacy, care delivery and digital channels. This creates a rare opportunity to understand the full journey people navigate as they seek care, fill prescriptions, manage coverage and work to stay healthy. The company’s overarching goal is not simply to improve each touchpoint. It is to remove the fragmentation that forces patients to piece care togeth...

Brian D. Pieninck didn’t take a conventional path to healthcare leadership. He started his career as an 18-year-old IT contractor and spent two decades working across the industry before becoming President and CEO of CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield. He now also serves as Chair of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, bringing both local and national perspective to the role. In this episode, Keith Figlioli speaks with Pieninck about what it means to lead a not-for-profit regional paye...

Dr. Ali Khan has spent his career at the intersection of medicine, public policy, and value-based care. He’s also been at the forefront of some of the country's most innovative care delivery models—from Iora Health and CareMore to Oak Street Health and now Aetna, where he serves as Chief Medical Officer of Medicare at Aetna, a CVS Health company. In this episode, Keith Figlioli sits down with Dr. Khan for a conversation about Medicare’s future—and what it will take to make the promise of bett...

Dr. Harlan Levine began his career practicing internal medicine but soon moved into business leadership roles at national healthcare organizations to help improve the dysfunction with payer-provider relationships that he experienced firsthand as a physician. At United Health Group, Dr. Levine joined as clinical lead of the team that launched Optum, where he subsequently served as chief medical officer for more than six years. He also led the health management practice at Towers Watson and ser...

Elements of the new Trump administration are coming into focus as announcements of key healthcare appointments and nominations provide indications for what the market can expect starting in January. To dissect the impact these changes might have, Wall Street Analyst Jeff Garro joined Keith Figlioli to wrap up a four-part series of episodes on election implications. Previous episodes featured conversations with JP Morgan’s Lisa Gill, Canaccord Genuity’s Richard Close, and Maverick Health Polic...

With the White House and Congress up for grabs this election, anticipation in the healthcare industry is high. Shifts in healthcare policy will influence how care is paid for and delivered, which will of course influence the flow of investment dollars in both public and private markets. During the first episode of a four-part series on election implications, beltway insider Julie Barnes laid out potential scenarios for the direction healthcare policy might take depending on election outcomes....

OSF HealthCare stands as a model health system for those who want to do innovation right. One of the defining characteristics of the Peoria, Illinois-based system is how it aligns innovation with operations for everyone – all 24,000 employees across 159 locations, including 16 hospitals. Becky Buchen is responsible for driving innovation at OSF HealthCare. As SVP of Innovation Operations she works to engage and educate people on the innovation process, leveraging the eco-system for innovatio...