Apr 5, 2022 | by Rick Chelko, Commentary
As you might guess from the title and subtitle of Dave Chase’s popular book Relocalizing Health: The Future of Health Care is Local, Open and Independent, the emphasis on “local” is a key building block for his vision of a more cost-effective health care system. While I support many of the concepts discussed in the book, I remain skeptical when it comes to the localization premise ꟷ at least as it applies to large employers with distributed operations. (more…)
Feb 24, 2022 | by Rick Chelko, Commentary
A friend of mine is the CEO of a structural engineering company that specializes in maintenance, construction, modifications, inspections, and emergency services within the broadcast industry. Pretty mundane stuff, right? Far from it.
What I failed to mention is that the company’s niche is working on the highest communications towers in the country ― towers that rise as high as 2,000 feet in the air. (more…)
Jan 19, 2022 | by Rick Chelko, Commentary
Most companies and their functional areas tend to passionately pursue best-in-class performance, but do executives send a different signal to their employee benefits teams? (more…)
Nov 30, 2021 | by Kelly Prymicz, Commentary, Specialty Drug Management
If you’re a plan sponsor, you’re probably familiar with the drug Humira. That’s undoubtedly because it appears toward the top of your list of costliest drugs. Well, that might change soon. Or maybe not. It’s tough to tell. (more…)
Nov 29, 2021 | Commentary, Specialty Drug Management
What keeps you awake at night? For a couple years now, we’ve written about the number of mega-expensive new cell and gene therapies in the development pipeline. By “mega,” we generally mean therapies costing more than a million dollars. (more…)
Sep 27, 2021 | by Rick Chelko, Commentary
I recently saw this statement in big bold letters on the last page of a report issued by one of our competitors. I agree, independence can be a real game-changer. But what is “independence” in this context? (more…)
