WORKWEEK

One of the more trends that struck me as fascinating this year was watching the utter chaos happening among retail and nontraditional players trying to enter healthcare and figure out cohesive strategies. Bottom line: large retailers want a piece of the healthcare pie, and you should expect stepwise and incremental movement into healthcare from here for most of these (Amazon, Best Buy, various grocers, Walgreens, etc). The below is what I perceive to be close to a comprehensive review of what each player did in 2023, and what their core focus in healthcare is.

What’s Top of Mind for Health Systems post-JP Morgan – Hospitalogy

much of what’s occurring across government health insurance programs ties into the vertical integration trends, and ties into where investment dollars are headed in 2024. Here’s what happened, and where we’re headed across Medicare Advantage, ACA marketplace, and Medicaid.

agilon kicked off the year in the worst possible way for the Medicare-focused enablement firm, announcing a huge cut to its expected financial results. Meanwhile, it also announced the retiring of its CFO on the same day. Goes without saying, but announcing a CFO transition the same day your company slashes your projected earnings is a recipe for disaster, as noted by the utter destruction of shareholder value, down 30% on the day:

The history and strategy behind Optum – and UnitedHealth Group’s unreal outperformance – is important to know when you contextualize what happened in 2023. It’s why Optum continues to lay waste to the healthcare landscape by buying every company it wants. It’s why CVS started the year off with a bang by acquiring Oak Street Health for a hefty sum, then rebranding its services subsidiary to Healthspire. Payors everywhere are creating Optum-like subsidiaries to follow suit, and this activity accelerated in 2023

Good morning Hospitalogists, I hope everyone is having a great first Tuesday of 2024 catching up on those emails you put off the last week of December. I can relate! Today I thought it’d be fitting to dive into the company that kicked off 2023 with a bang by acquiring Oak Street Health for $10.6B.…