Employers, Payers, and Pharma Face a Post–Labor Day Reckoning

We are living in unprecedented times. One of the LinkedIn posts that struck me most this week was shared via Chris Ellis, CEO of Thatch, a company in the ICHRA space, which described three “tectonic shifts” in the healthcare industry that are occurring all at once. Ellis kicked off the piece by describing how he had taken a call with an executive from a large health plan who described this period as “the most destabilizing he’d seen in his career.” The post is worth reading in full, as it describes the impacts of inflation, massive pullbacks in government spending, and challenges that small business owners face across the country.

All of that mirrors much of the talk from a webinar I moderated this week, hosted by Personify Health, where we convened a group of experts to discuss rising costs of care and how employers are mitigating that. What stood out in the conversation is that larger employers are still committed to providing healthcare, even amid CFO pressure to cut costs, and that there’s sustained interest in benefits that employees most favor (fertility benefits, obesity management, and more). One of the biggest challenges, however, is motivating employees to engage in preventive care - whether it be lifestyle modifications, vaccinations, screenings, and more. I shared a clip below from the discussion, featuring the Geisinger executive and my fellow Scrub Capital GP Dr. Jon Slotkin, Manatt managing director Dr. Vin Gupta, Business Group on Healthcare’s Ellen Kelsay, and Personify Health Executive Chairman Chris Michalak. Ultimately, the group concluded that this is the right moment for new and creative ideas, including in areas like innovations in stop loss insurance, Centers of Excellence programs for cell and gene therapies, new point solutions that tackle underserved conditions, like autoimmune diseases, and more.