This truly is an exciting time for American healthcare. We often hear how broken the U.S. healthcare system is, and that is indisputable. Yet, September was a month packed with innovation and hope, as I gathered with various groups of disruptors and change leaders making meaningful impact on the way we deliver, finance, and consume healthcare across the nation. By joining the Direct Primary Care Coalition’s D.C. Fly-In on Capitol Hill, Health Rosetta’s annual RosettaFest, the American Academy of Family Physicians’ Family Medicine Experience (FMX) Conference, and the Hint Health Annual Summit, I had the opportunity to soak up the hope while sharing ideas and making crucial connections with primary care champions and changemakers from all over the country.

DPC Coalition Steering Committee and D.C. Fly-In

The DPC Coalition, led by Jay Keese, is responsible for ongoing policy advocacy on behalf of patients and physicians to promote better primary care, particularly through better payment models. At the steering committee on September 10, we heard about innovations in the industry across pharmacy, malpractice insurance, health plan design, and policy proposals. Of particular interest is the innovation in malpractice insurance, which has developed around the direct primary care (DPC) movement. While obvious in hindsight, it turns out that malpractice claims are negligible in direct primary care compared to primary care in traditional insurance-based practice settings. When separated into a different risk pool, DPC physicians can save lots of money on their malpractice insurance premiums with these new plans.

On September 11, the anniversary of the most deadly terrorist attack our nation has ever known, I walked with a small group of primary care physicians and advocates past the Supreme Court building, the Capitol building with flags at half-mast, and various Congressional offices. We were there to meet with individual members of Congress in both the House and the Senate to advocate for two bipartisan bills: the Primary Care Enhancement Act and the Medicaid Primary Care Improvement Act, both described in this recent blog post. We found both of these bills to be warmly received, albeit with varied levels of awareness from members of Congress. We were happy to educate and provide resources, and urged them to bring both bills to the floor for a vote before the end of the year.

RosettaFest

Health Rosetta is an organization focused on transforming the U.S. healthcare system by promoting more sustainable and transparent healthcare practices. It serves as a blueprint for employers, public-sector organizations, and unions to reduce healthcare costs while improving the quality of care. Health Rosetta advocates for value-based healthcare, emphasizing patient-centered care, transparent pricing, and the elimination of wasteful practices within the system. Through education, tools, and certification for benefits advisors, they aim to empower organizations to make smarter, more cost-effective decisions while improving the overall experience for patients and employees.

This is exactly the kind of disruption we need in American healthcare, and RosettaFest is Health Rosetta’s annual event bringing together both the experts and the curious to build momentum that will help overhaul the misaligned incentives distorting the status quo system. Historically an event attended by benefits advisors and employers, this year’s event was attended by more clinicians than ever before, indicating an important shift in how the delivery arm of healthcare is beginning to adopt these innovative principles.

I was invited by Dr. S.V. Mahadevan, Chief Medical Officer of Elation’s partner Fold Health, to be a panelist discussing the topic Beyond the Algorithm: Why Technology Driven Healthcare Needs a Human Touch. Together with Drew Leatherberry, President of Avergent, and Chris Yessayan, Chief Integration Officer of BowTie Medical, we had a great discussion about what technology can do to make more space for the relationship at the center of the healthcare experience for patients.

FMX - The Family Medicine Event of the Year!

Elation is a regular attendee at the American Academy of Physicians’ big annual event, FMX, and one might consider it our Superbowl. This is the single most important event of the year because it is our opportunity to connect with hundreds—perhaps thousands—of family physicians from all over the country. Family physicians are truly some of the best humans, and we get joy out of hearing about their practices and their plans and sharing how Elation can help.

We had a steady stream of visitors to our booth in the exhibit hall, and were particularly excited this year to promote both our new integrated billing software and our new AI-powered ambient scribe solution, Note Assist. Elation Billing is the first fully integrated billing software in a primary care-focused, clinical-first EHR, and it has created a superior experience for Elation customers compared to third-party billing software solutions. Note Assist is a remarkable breakthrough in a sea of individual point solutions due to it being invented by Elation developers instead of partnering with a third-party scribe vendor. This gives us full control over the entire customer experience, and the latitude to evolve our AI capabilities in incredible ways. We’ve been working hard over the past year to deliver these groundbreaking enhancements to our customers, and were thrilled to showcase them at FMX to rave reviews.

Hint Summit 2024

I wound down my travels in Denver, Colorado at the Hint Summit, an annual event focused on building the direct primary care movement. The Hint Summit is another regular stop on the Elation conference circuit, as many DPC practices have chosen Elation as their preferred EMR partner. As a practicing DPC physician myself, I am always excited to meet with my DPC colleagues and conspire together about how to revolutionize healthcare in America. The energy at the Hint Summit is consistently ablaze with healthcare disruptors, and I’ve learned my superpower is imagining synergy where none yet exists and then connecting people who can make magic happen together.

The highlight of the Hint Summit this year was seeing Elation DPC customers sweep the Hint Awards! Dr. Sabina Singh of Anovia Health took home the DPC Growth Award, Dr. Ben Aiken of Lantern Health landed the DPC of the Year Award, and Dr. Vasanth Kainkaryam of 4 Elements Direct Primary Care was honored with the Visionary Culture Award. Congratulations to these deserving winners!

Time to Get to Work

The Commonwealth Fund recently published their 2024 update to the “Mirror Mirror” report, which provides an international comparison of health system performance for the world’s ten wealthiest nations. Consistent with all previous reports, the U.S. health system continues its track record of underperformance in a “class by itself” with significantly poorer performance on measures like access, health equity, administrative efficiency, and health outcomes. This paints a pessimistic picture, and we have plenty of cause for continued concern. Yet, after rounding out a busy September of seeing innovations gathering momentum, and efforts that have the potential to challenge the status quo in ways we’ve never witnessed before, I am confident in saying that it’s not time to give up hope. It’s time to get to work.