Whether Einstein said it or not, compound interest is amazing: “…the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it earns it, he who doesn’t, pays it.” Negative compounding is powerful too, and we pay it in the form of healthcare inflation. Over the last 10 years, annual healthcare inflation for workers has averaged 5%,…
Category: Industry Trends
An Analysis of Direct Primary Care
Mark Twain said “There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope.” Paying cash for primary care is not new, but it’s a model that’s resurging after decades of being overly tangled with insurance*. Direct…
$300 Questions
There are things you Google: the population of Dubai, the weather, or quotes on insurance*. There are deeper inquiries: what’s a firm’s adjusted return on equity over time, management’s scorecard from share-buyback timing, what a hospital’s collections have been over time, the ROI of telemedicine, a hidden fact or tips on a contact for an…
Metrics Matter
In the misty land of adjusted and “community adjusted EBITDA” (thanks to The We Company for backing out the “building- and community-level operating expenses,”) we are reminded that to embellish is natural. We sometimes hide our worst selves and fill our dating profiles with dogs, filters, and a professed love of poetry. Corporate structures can be…
The Survey Says…
Headlines latch on to 5% and $20k, leadings numbers from the 200+ page annual Kaiser Employer Health Benefits Survey. Forbes, NYT, Bloomberg, Health Affairs, and the WSJ all take this angle. The press is warranted. Healthcare costs continue to grow at 2x inflation and annual premiums for family coverage crossed $20,000, more than a mortgage…