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Scott Becker - 7 Stories We Are Following at Becker's Healthcare Currently 12-4-25 · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

• 0:00
  A special thank you to ECG
• 0:02
  Management Consultants.
• 0:04
  When it comes to health care, there are
• 0:06
  many consulting firms to choose from, including large
• 0:08
  firms that cater to many industries.
• 0:10
  Then there's ECG Management Consultants,
• 0:13
  the longest running health care only consultant from
• 0:15
  The US.
• 0:16
  In business for over fifty years, ECG
• 0:20
  stands alone with its reputation for building trust
• 0:22
  with clients and delivering measurable results.
• 0:25
  ECG offers a comprehensive range of services
• 0:28
  spending the entire delivery system
• 0:30
  from boardroom level strategy to system wide margin
• 0:33
  improvement and everything in between.
• 0:36
  ECG has the tough questions and tells clients
• 0:38
  what they need to hear, not just what
• 0:39
  they want to hear. ECG,
• 0:41
  the courage to change health care, to learn
• 0:44
  more, visit ecgmc.com.
• 0:47
  Thank you very much to ECG Management Consultants.
• 0:50
  This is Scott Becker with the Becker's Healthcare
• 0:53
  podcast.
• 0:55
  These are seven stories that we're following at
• 0:57
  Becker's Healthcare currently,
• 0:59
  and thank you so much for joining us.
• 1:02
  First,
• 1:03
  there's a story on Providence
• 1:05
  working through transformation
• 1:06
  during a poly crisis, meaning multiple different crises,
• 1:11
  reimbursement,
• 1:12
  staffing, changes in March b, and a lot
• 1:15
  more.
• 1:16
  Eric Wechsler is the CEO at Providence.
• 1:19
  I think that people will recognize over time
• 1:22
  that Eric is a remarkable,
• 1:24
  remarkable leader
• 1:25
  and may come out of this over the
• 1:27
  long term
• 1:29
  as one of
• 1:30
  the great leaders of this generation.
• 1:32
  I don't know that people yet generally recognize
• 1:35
  how talented a person Eric is.
• 1:38
  Second,
• 1:40
  Community Health Systems sells lab assets to focus
• 1:43
  more on its core businesses.
• 1:45
  It's really incredible to watch what CHS has
• 1:49
  done over the last several years to transform
• 1:51
  themselves and to become profitable again and successful
• 1:54
  again.
• 1:55
  At one point, they chased being the largest
• 1:57
  hospital system company in the country with the
• 2:00
  most number of hospitals,
• 2:02
  but they got way out over in front
• 2:04
  of their skis with debt in doing so.
• 2:06
  Over the last several years, if we trench
• 2:08
  from that and really turn the company into
• 2:10
  a profitable company again, it's amazing transformation
• 2:13
  that Community Health Systems has done.
• 2:16
  Third,
• 2:17
  a third article on a core plan did
• 2:19
  vet vet pharmacy into health system strategy.
• 2:23
  Pharmacy has become incredibly important to health systems,
• 2:26
  both as a profit engine and how to
• 2:28
  manage cost and so forth, and we're watching
• 2:31
  that closely.
• 2:34
  Fourth, we've got another pharmacy story where the
• 2:38
  sues to stop three forty b changes that
• 2:40
  are coming out of DC.
• 2:42
  Again,
• 2:43
  Rick Pollock
• 2:44
  at the is an incredible leader and great
• 2:47
  to watch what he does and how he
• 2:49
  focuses the
• 2:50
  He's probably been the most big tent leader
• 2:53
  of the again in generations and just tremendous
• 2:56
  at what he does.
• 2:58
  Fifth,
• 2:59
  OpenAI,
• 3:00
  and many of us use OpenAI.
• 3:01
  I now use it daily and ChatGPT
• 3:05
  is going back to refocusing its efforts around
• 3:07
  its core, trying to improve what it's doing
• 3:10
  with ChatGPT
• 3:10
  and its chatbots.
• 3:12
  This has potential to have a slowing effect
• 3:15
  on what they do in health care and
• 3:16
  its movement into health care.
• 3:18
  Sixth,
• 3:19
  a Georgia doctor pleads guilty to $244,000,000
• 3:22
  dollar testing and kickback scheme.
• 3:25
  Again, this dealt with diagnostics
• 3:27
  and a number of testing types of things,
• 3:30
  paying kickbacks for tests and essentially doing tests
• 3:32
  that weren't really done
• 3:34
  or
• 3:35
  jamming up the records to do them. Just
• 3:37
  a reminder that there's still a lot of
• 3:39
  fraud and abuse in health care. We're watching
• 3:41
  that closely.
• 3:43
  Finally, seventh, when Oregon Hospital,
• 3:45
  announces that it's closing and laying off 300
• 3:47
  people, another sign of the times in health
• 3:50
  care, it's been very, very hard to operate
• 3:52
  in health care generally and particularly hard to
• 3:54
  operate as a small hospital or an independent
• 3:56
  hospital.
• 3:57
  Thank you for listening
• 3:58
  to this edition of the Becker's health care
• 4:00
  podcast.
• 4:01
  As a PS, we love the everyday work,
• 4:04
  the great work of the Becker's Healthcare editorial
• 4:06
  team. Thank you so much. Thank you.