Mental Health Blue Print for a Healthy Society
Kairos Lede for Kairos Policy Group
June 29, 2023
Key Takeaways:
1.Mental health is synonymous with well-being – not health care.
2. The science of human connection can improve policy outcomes.
3. How a person chooses to connect also influences personal well-being.
4. Ensuring every American understands this and has the necessary skills to take advantage is the secret to reimaging mental health policy and ending a national crisis.
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Tags: Creativity, Health and Wellness, Mental Health
America’s Most Wanted: A Federal Strategy to Improve Society’s Mental Health
Kairos Lede for Kairos Policy Group
May 31, 2023
Key Takeaways
1. Sens. Michael Bennet (D-CO) and John Cornyn (R-TX) are building a modern federal funding strategy to solve the mental health crisis in U.S.
2. The strategy: redesign the federal government’s relationship with communities, reimagine mental and behavioral health services, and continuously improve the system.
3. The vision represents real promise that America can end the crisis.
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Tags: Creativity, Health and Wellness, Mental Health
Wellness & Prevention: Modern Philosophies for a Reimagined Mental Health Strategy
Kairos Lede for Kairos Policy Group
April 18, 2023
Key Takeaways / Series Part 2
1. The current U.S. strategy for improving mental health is contributing to a national crisis
2. Needed is a modern strategy capable for preventing poor mental health before it becomes a mental illness.
3. A proactive mental health agenda can succeed in reducing the incidences of poor mental health where other reform efforts have failed.
4. A strategy supported by smart political and spending strategies to help support passage during tough economic and political times.
5. This article is the first in a series that will focus on the components of mental health reform and how to achieve it.
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Tags: Creativity, Health and Wellness, Mental Health
The Rise of Consumer-Centric Care: How AI is Reimagining Healthcare Access and Delivery
Kairos Lede for Kairos Policy Group
March 16, 2023
Part 8 - Key Takeaways
1. Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a medical workforce alternative represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to alleviate existing and worsening labor shortages in the healthcare market while saving public and private payers money.
2. This technology offers consumers advantages over the existing healthcare business model through:
3. More frequent interactions with the medical system beyond what human medical workforces can supply and for lower costs; and
4. A more personalized user experience, extracting consumers from population and subpopulation health approaches into a unique care pathway tailored to their needs and that grows with them as they age.
5. We anticipate that the advantages afforded by AI to consumers and payers alike will foster a new marketplace of consumer-enabling products and fuel an explosion in digitally enabled insurance benefits.
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Tags: AI, Digital Disruption, Health and Wellness
Society, Stigma, and Collective Illusions
Kairos Lede for Kairos Policy Group
January 12, 2023
Part 1 - Key Takeaways
1. More Americans will seek medical help for a mental health condition this year than there are doctors to treat them, and this disparity is broadly expected to worsen in the years to come.
2. This fact calls into question whether the U.S. strategy for improving mental health, which is heavily focused on funding medical responses to mental health conditions, is the right approach.
3. New approaches to policymaking that consider these dynamics might create once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to repair American society.
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Tags: Creativity, Health and Wellness, Mental Health
Reimagining Health: The Rise of Consumer-Centric Care
Kairos Lede for Kairos Policy Group
December 22, 2022
Part 7 - Key Takeaways:
Key Takeaways:
1. Changes in consumer preferences related to medical service access and use are fueling a once-in-a-generation health market disruption likely to result in new business models, service offerings, and a fundamental recentering of the US healthcare system on patient preferences.
2. Factors contributing to this market realignment include retail-centered medical service offerings increasing competition in market combined with M&A appetities for medically licensed workforces.
3. Implementing technology-enabled care and services makes highly customizable care models attractive to insurers and consumers.
4. The COVID-19 pandemic has normalized consumer attitudes toward virtual care options.
5. Prescriptions drive medical reimbursement, and medical prescribers have become a commodity in the healthcare market.
6. New data-enabled care and benefit designs will drive reimbursement changes that favor measurable outcomes over process-oriented payment approaches.
7. Replacing medical prescribers with empowered consumers at the center of the healthcare ecosystem will create new demand that will fundamentally change care delivery systems and upend established medical pricing models
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Tags: Digital Disruption, Digital Transformation, Health and Wellness
Digital Health Technology Functions are Fueling Health Market Disruption via Competition with Provider-Centric Business Model.
Kairos Lede for Kairos Policy Group
December 08, 2022
Part 6 - Key Takeaways:
1.Good news for health market disruption fans: change is on the way and could be big.
2. The business opportunity for CVS Health and Amazon appears ripe, given key shifts in consumer shopping behaviors since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
3. CVS Health released the results of a 2022 patient survey that found significant shifts in consumer shopping behaviors.
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Tags: Digital Disruption, Health and Wellness, Mergers and Acquisitions
CVS Health vs. Amazon Clinic Update: The Latest in the Race to Reimagine the US Healthcare Market
Kairos Lede for Kairos Policy Group
December 06, 2022
Part 5 - Key Takeaways:
1. CVS will leverage the Dario Health partnership to address systemic workforce challenges.
2. Next up for CVS Health is the expected rollout of a complete medical services model, covered by insurance and capable of competing with physician-led businesses.
3. Amazon is poised to have a massive footprint in the healthcare market.
4. M&A and strategic partnerships are a likely potential future for Amazon as it looks to complete its own medical and insurance offering.
5. Expect more disruption in payer markets.
6. Medical workforce M&A activity in the healthcare sector will likely continue.
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Tags: Creativity, Health and Wellness, Mergers and Acquisitions
Amazon vs. CVS Health: The Moon Race for a Retail Medical Services Model Will Drive Market Disruption
Kairos Lede for Kairos Policy Group
September 20, 2022
Part 4 - Key Takeaways
1. Amazon has joined CVS Health in a race to establish a retail-centered medical services care model intended to compete with physician owned practices and some medical facility business models.
2. Each company has a unique retail model that can be leveraged to support the offering and unique M&A needed to complete it.
3. CVS Health enjoys a significant lead in model development, but Amazon’s own experience converting Whole Foods into a community access point for a range of services, its cloud computing business that can support digital workforce alternatives, and significant financial reserves means Amazon can catch up.
4. Expect furious M&A and strategic partnerships from both companies over the coming months and years as each builds out the model.
5. Workforces with medical prescribing authority will continue to be a priority of M&A from both companies.
6. We anticipate that a host of secondary entities will look to occupy areas of business related to these models including workforce staffing agencies, third party vendors for both models and patients using them, and community medical models already in operation in local markets.
7. Workforce alternatives like digital medical service providers, A.I, virtual care (including but not limited to telehealth), and lower-licensed medical workforces (ex. coaches) will continue to increase in relevance as the technology continues to evolve.
8. CVS is rumored to act next when more information on the company’s Virtual Primary Care model offerings is made public during Aetna’s marketing of 2023 health insurance plans set to begin October 1, 2022.
9. True market disruption may be the result of what is occurring as a finite amount of medically licensed workforce numbers increase appetites from payers and others for workforce and business model alternatives.
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Tags: Digital Disruption, Health and Wellness, Mergers and Acquisitions
Reforming How Medicare Pays for Digital Health
Petrie-Flom Center at Harvard Law School
August 11, 2021
Part 3 - Key Takeaways:
Legislative and regulatory reform musts for digital:
1. Focus on digital health and other innovative products and services that have the potential to provide the same or better outcomes for the same or lower costs of care;
2. Allow for alternatives to coverage, coding, payment, and pricing for digital health products and services which, due to their design and implementation, do not put Medicare finances at undue risk;
3. Establish regulatory revisions designed to speed innovative technologies through CMS administrative and coding processes;
4. Recognize digital health product and service providers for purposes of payment similarly to how physicians and medical facilities are recognized;
5. Develop a dedicated team of coding, coverage, and technology experts to facilitate the design of coverage and payment approaches that succeed in delivering new value for beneficiaries and the program; and
6. Implement a modernization strategy for the program around this pathway that can be used by CMS leadership and staff to help drive reforms offered by innovative technologies into Medicare’s Part A and B payment systems.
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Tags: Digital Disruption, Digital Transformation, Health and Wellness
In The Digital Era, Payment Reform Is Key To Shaping A Modern Medicare Program
Health Affairs Forefront
February 22, 2021
Part 2 - Key Takeaways:
1. Coverage Reform Within The Payment Systems
2. Updating CMS Digital Coverage Standards to Prioritize “Value”
3. Calculating Digital Reimbursement Amounts More Accurately
4. Consider Technologies’ Function, Not Their Modality
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Tags: Digital Disruption, Digital Transformation, Health and Wellness
Rethinking CMS Coverage And Reimbursement For The Fourth Industrial (AKA Digital) Revolution
Health Affairs Forefront
October 23, 2020
(Published in Health Affairs)
Part 1 - Key Takeaways
1. Health Care has not benefited from the digital technology revolution when compared to other economic sectors when it comes to service delivery and payment reform.
2. This article attempts to reframe the discussion with a goal of providing insights into the way forward using the Medicare program as example.
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Tags: Digital Disruption, Digital Transformation, Health and Wellness