← Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
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- [00:02]
A
This is where health insurance leadership comes together. Becker's 4th Annual Spring Payer Issues Roundtable brings together over 400 payer and health plan executives and more than 100 speakers to Chicago, April 13th and 14th. This year's event includes keynote conversations with the industry's top leaders and former President George W. Bush. For the full agenda and event details, visit Beckershospitalreview.com and click on the Events tab in the upper right. We're looking forward to hosting you here in Chicago. Hello, everyone. This is Jacob Emerson with the Becker's Payer Issues podcast. Thrilled today to be joined by Scan Group President and CEO Dr. Sachin Jain. Dr. Jain, thanks so much for taking the time to chat with me on the podcast.
- [00:46]
B
Once again, thanks so much for having me, Jacob. It's always an honor and a pleasure.
- [00:50]
A
Absolutely. Likewise. And we've got a lot we want to talk with you about today, Sachin, about a piece you wrote for Forbes. But obviously, as you know, there. There's been a lot happening over across the healthcare industry this year already in the first few weeks of the year. A lot of federal policy debate and proposals in Washington got the CEOs of the largest insurers testifying before Congress last week over rising premiums. And then you wrote in your piece that of course, all of this is happening as trust in the industry overall remains fragile given the events of the last couple of years. So against that backdrop, you published an op ed in Forbes this month outlining 10 healthcare leadership resolutions for the year ahead. Um, you noted it's. It's not a trend forecast, it's not a strategy framework, it's a candid call for accountability. And you're arguing that health care's core challenge is not innovation fatigue or talent talent shortages, but a growing deficit of leadership resolve. So, so correct me if I, if I framed that incorrectly at all, Sachin, but, but how I want to.
- [01:52]
B
I think you framed it. I think you framed it better than I framed it, Jacob. So thank you. Yeah, I appreciate it.
- [01:56]
A
Glad to hear that. I mean, tell us, why do you want to write this piece? Why do you want to start off this year writing this in such a public manner?
- [02:03]
B
Well, on a personal note, I'm a big New Year's resolutions guy, so I like to spend the last couple of weeks of the year thinking about the next year. And as I was doing that for myself on a personal level, I started to think about my resolutions from a professional perspective and I started to think about the behaviors that I wanted to see more in myself. And then also behaviors that I think we need to see know more broadly. And, you know, number one, is something I believe in, you know, to my core, which is that we all need to say the hard things and do the hard things more. I think healthcare is an industry that is just bereft with happy talk, and we need to kind of move beyond the happy talk, in part because I think the happy talk actually gets in the way of actually addressing the real problems, the real elephants in the room. If we're constantly kind of talking about what's working, we're not talking about what's not working. And, you know, to connect it back to the trust point that you made earlier, we may not be talking about it as healthcare leaders, but all of our patients and healthcare workers are all talking about it everywhere. And so the trust gap builds when there's one talk track that's happening at a leadership level and then there's another talk track that's happening at the patient and clinician level. And when those two things are increasingly misaligned, it actually widens the trust gap because it gives people the feeling that some people are living on Mars while other people are living on Venus, and we all need to be on planet Earth. And I think part of that begins with actually just naming the problem so that we can actually start to fix the problem.
- [03:52]
A
Sure. And I hear you loud and clear. I would share in being and getting sick of the happy talk from leaders within the industry. I certainly hear here it's daily.
- [04:04]
B
You're only now getting sick of it. I mean, you just. You listen to it all the time. So I'm just. Yeah, you listen to it more than I do.
- [04:10]
A
But let me ask you, because I think where this is coming from is it's from, you know, you wrote, this isn't coming from lack of intelligence. It's not coming from people who don't know what they're doing, but at least. Least from, you know, when I'm having interviews with very senior executives in this industry, they are scared to say what they really feel either, because, you know, they. They have their PR department that has written them very strict things to communicate. They don't want to get into legal trouble. They don't want to communicate, you know, get into trouble with their board, whatever it is. Executives are often very afraid to step in it, and they don't want to go in. In the way that, you know, is, I think, framed as the correct way of communicating whatever we're talking about in the given moment. So how do you counter something like that. Something that I think innately is a fear from a lot of leadership in the industry.
- [04:58]
B
Well, I'm glad you mentioned the PR people, because I think we have a broken PR playbook for healthcare. And I liken it a lot to the Ivy League presidents that were in Congress testifying and not answering questions that were asked very directly. Directly. And you see that that playbook of obfuscation, of being excessively careful in the face of hard questions plays exactly the way that it played, you know, when those Ivy League presidents were actually testifying before Congress, which is actually plays very badly if you're asked direct questions and you don't answer them directly. And if you're not speaking truth, in situations where you're asked to speak truth, it leaves a certain taste in your mouth. And I think that, you know, the instructions that we're getting from PR people are outdated. Now we have a great PR department, small and mighty at scan. But, you know, the truth is, is that we are, you know, getting out of the world of talking points and getting into the world of just speaking the truth plainly and simply and honestly. I think, you know, you know, we had this big national campaign last year, which was Health insurance is broken was our tagline. You know, SCAN sees it and is doing something to fix it. That's a very different message than you hear from almost all of our competitors, both on the payer side and the provider side, where most folks are touting their US News and World Report rankings, they're touting their, you know, Vizient ratings, whatever it is. The truth is, is that if you actually look at what's really happening to patients and clinicians, health care is getting worse and not better. And if you actually say that out loud, it gives you the best chance possible to actually fix it. But I think we're robbing ourselves of that when we hide behind the simple PR talk. And again, I'll just say that old playbooks are really, really outdated. Saying nothing is not a strategy. And so I would, I think that one of the biggest opportunities we have as an industry to move forward the quality of leadership and the impact of leadership is to actually commit to speaking more plainly and more truthfully and more honestly about what's really going on.
- [07:18]
A
Absolutely. And I definitely would give kudos to SCAN for a very unique Medicare Advantage campaign last year. Such and definitely one of the more candid moments we've seen in the industry over the last few years in terms of just openly talking about the frustrations that members all across the country not scan, have with their health plans. But I also wonder, there's a lot of leaders that don't necessarily see themselves as wanting to be or needing to be mouthpieces for industry wide change. They just want to focus on quiet operational discipline within their, their specific organizations. Do you think that there's a risk here of them getting drowned out by people who are louder, even if those people are less substantive in what they're saying?
- [08:04]
B
Yeah. Again, I'm going to sound like a broken record, but I think it's an outdated playbook. I think one of the reasons we haven't had more policy change is that we are quietly going about our business, not really asking the hard questions and saying the hard things and leading the kind of policy advocacy that we need. And what I'll say is, if you're not part of driving change, change will happen to you. That happens over and over again. History proves that change will happen to those who don't actually participate in creating it themselves. And so I think we as leaders have an opportunity and almost an obligation to, to take our knowledge of what's not working and actually work proactively to address it, whether it's through operations, but also through advocacy, through policy, through public proclamations. I think when you don't speak in 2026, you're seen as frankly complicit in the status quo. And I don't think that that's unfair. I think if you are not part of the voices advocating for change, you are indeed part of the broken status quo. And that is not a position that I think history will look favorably upon in the future. So I think we all have to really think hard about how we show up and what we really stand for and move beyond the platitudes. And one of my least favorite industry platitudes is the no margin, no mission platitude because it avoids the kind of reflection that's actually necessary about what the actual mission is. And I don't think the mission is to just keep your organization alive no matter what. I think the mission is to heal people, to serve the community, to improve population health. That's the work that we really need to do.
- [09:48]
A
Yeah, no, it's a, it's a good call out. I, I like that you're calling out your least favorite platitude such. And I, I think maybe mine, I would add, is meeting the member where they are. I hear that consistently, probably on a weekly basis. And at least from my perspective, that seems like something that should have been.
- [10:04]
B
About what about right care, right time Right place. That's another one. I'm sure you hear a lot on this podcast, Jacob.
- [10:10]
A
Yeah, definitely. And it's also something I wanted to ask you about in terms of just what we hear so much of right now, but it's almost saying everything and yet nothing. And it's the AI conversation, Sachin. And I say that because it's almost like every press release, every product rollout, every initiative, every project has to have some kind of AI powered, AI driven explainer on, attached to the front of it. And you know, I know this technology is, has been transformative for the industry right now, but I wanted to connect it back to what something you said in your piece.
- [10:42]
B
Well, actually, actually Jacob, I would push. I don't think it has been transformative. Right. That's the point is that, you know, you know, are you or I getting in to see our primary care doctors any sooner?
- [10:51]
A
Yeah.
- [10:52]
B
Are you or I, you know, actually getting the kind of care that we need when we need it because of something that some health system is enabled by AI? I don't think so. And so until the benefit really accrues to the end customer, which is the patient, I don't think we can actually say that AI has led to any real change. And I think a lot of what's happening right now is we're getting a lot of back office innovation which is really about revenue cycle management and coding and we're not necessarily getting patient facing innovation. I had this, you know, my, my team a couple of weeks ago was presenting to us the chatbot that feed a chatbot feature which is, you know, kind of table stakes that, you know, every company has. And I just kept thinking to myself, has anyone ever met a chatbot that they actually like? And I couldn't, couldn't think of anyone who's ever like, oh man, I use the United Airlines chatbot. And it was really awesome. I really prefer that to actually interacting with a person. Now certainly like if I had a simple request like, you know, you know, send me my membership card or something like that, those, those types of, you know, features are helpful and reduce friction. But what most people's health care problems aren't as simple as needing a membership card or needing a, you know, you know, a referral to a specialist, it gets much more complicated than that, you know, and that's the work, you know, that we need to do is make those complicated things better and simpler. So until AI is actually influencing the, the complicated things and truly making the system work better, you know, I think we're we haven't. The game hasn't even started yet.
- [12:28]
A
No, and I, I appreciate the pushback. I certainly am guilty of falling for the rhetoric, I think just as much as anybody. And I, I think the question there, Sachin, is how should the leaders listening in who can also be just as guilty of this? How can they distinguish themselves between genuine transformation, whether that be at the company or industry wide and some of the organizational noise that you described in your piece.
- [12:50]
B
I would say skeptic and toxic positivity is out and I think, you know, the way we can actually, you know, another, another truism that my friend Aman Bhandari, who is, you know, the head of AI and data science at Vertex Pharmaceuticals was, you know, show me a startup that's actually moved the needle on care delivery. And it, you know, the truth is there's a few, but for the most part, most of what, you know, the startup ecosystem, the venture ecosystem is doing is adding a lot of noise now. They're getting a lot of attention right now. But the truth is that there's a lot of noise and the noise to actual impact ratio is off the charts right now. And I'd like to see us really push the impact numbers up and reduce the noise and maybe part of what a Beckers can do is start to be a more skeptical voice. And I think healthcare journalism could play an important role in this too.
- [13:50]
A
Yeah, I really appreciate that call out as well. I would agree. We definitely have a responsibility to be more skeptical in all of the communications that are coming our way and what the authorities on these topics are telling us. So yeah, I would agree with simple.
- [14:04]
B
A simple fix here. I mean, again, I don't think Becker's does this that much, but I think a lot of venues just get really focused on the fundraising. Right. It's like, oh, Joe, Startup has raised a series B that has X, Y and Z investors and it's $30 million round. And you know, we're not actually talking about hey Joe, Startup move the needle on the care of diabetics in X health system. Right. That's the kind of conversation that we need to be having more of. And that's the kind of stuff that we should be elevating more, not whether someone was clever enough to raise money from a syndicate of investors.
- [14:43]
A
Yeah, absolutely. And I think unfortunately that's also a symptom of our media, media ecosystem going towards what are the audiences clicking on. And I know that's an entire other conversation. So I won't, you know, go down that Path.
- [14:56]
B
Sure, sure, sure. Yeah, I'm sorry, I took us there.
- [14:58]
A
No, no, no worries at all. But I, I wanted to ask about a few of your resolutions. One is elevating frontline workers, the people who are actually doing the work of health care in these organizations. Rooting out toxic positivity, ending performative initiatives. I think all of these things really require these leaders at these companies to cede some of their power or, or at least confront entrenched interests within their organizations, which, as you know, across the industry, these companies can be massive. So what makes you confident that executives will actually do this, can actually do this kind of thing, rather than simply agreeing with you, having the good intentions, but then moving on, same as usual?
- [15:41]
B
Well, I think we need to change. I think everyone knows we need to change. I think most people in the middle ranks of most healthcare organizations are miserable. And I'll tell you why they're miserable. They're miserable because there's the happy talk that's coming from the top, and then there's the frontline reality that they're trying to manage and buffer. And they are struggling with the cognitive dissonance of the words they hear from their bosses and the cries that they hear from the front lines and the impact that they may not be having on patients. And so I think most people live with a certain amount of cognitive dissonance and moral discomfort. And I think part of what I wanted to do with these resolutions is give them a language, give these folks a language and maybe even point to me or point to this article and say, look at what this guy's saying. And how does this apply to our organization? It's not easy for someone to say these things out loud themselves. They are the things that they grumble about when they're talking to their friends and their families. But, you know, if it's an article form, maybe it's the kind of thing that can circulate and start a productive conversation about how these behaviors are happening in one's organizations and how they can move beyond them.
- [16:56]
A
So you're laying the groundwork for other leaders to, to use themselves. Sachin, I wonder, you know, jumping off of what we, what we talked about and what we saw last week in Congress with some of the CEOs of the largest insurers and what was said or what was not said, I think, do you see examples of what you're talking about today already happening in the industry? Is there something you would point to that gives you hope that the industry is on the right path? Or am I Framing that correctly, how would you describe where we're at in this process?
- [17:27]
B
I give the folks at AHIP a lot of credit for some of the work that came out of the post Brian Thompson murder. Right. The UM reform that they put in place, I think was. Was meaningful and it was potentially transformative, certainly steps in the right direction and something that we at SCAN have participated in as well. That said, I don't think we're going far enough, because I think what the dominant culture is, is to treat answering phones and contracting networks like we're saving lives. And I have a message to everyone in the PEAR industry who, you know, believes that we're saving lives. We're not. I think the people on the front lines of care delivery are. Our work is to enable those people, but in many cases, we're putting barriers up to people actually accessing care, and we have to make things as easy as possible, and we have to treat people like they're human beings, and we have to rehumanize our industry. I think that that term, rehumanization is something that really needs to start to resonate and percolate in boardrooms and management teams, because unfortunately, a lot of what people have experienced is actually dehumanization, not humanization.
- [18:43]
A
Wonderful. I think that's a really good place to leave things, Dr. Jain. So I want to thank you for taking the time to chat with me on the podcast and as always, for being candid with us and with our listeners in what you said can often be an industry and periods where it's difficult to hear those kinds of perspectives. So thank you for doing so. I really appreciate it.
- [19:05]
B
Always a pleasure. Jacob, thank you so much and really appreciate the time.
- [19:08]
A
Yeah, likewise. And to our listeners, if you'd like to listen to more podcasts from Becker's, you can visit Beckershospitalreview.com.