CareTalk: Healthcare. Unfiltered.
CareTalk: Healthcare. Unfiltered. is a weekly podcast that provides an incisive, no B.S. view of the US healthcare industry. Join co-hosts John Driscoll (President U.S. Healthcare and EVP, Walgreens Boots Alliance) and David Williams (President, Health Business Group) as they debate the latest in US healthcare news, business and policy. Visit us at www.CareTalkPodcast.com
Episodes
403 episodes
State Health Data Laws Are a Patient Safety Problem w/ Leigh Burchell, Altera Digital Health
A patient's right to control their own health data now depends almost entirely on which state they live in or happen to seek care in. The patchwork is growing, and the clinical and compliance consequences are catching up fast.Leigh Burc...
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Healthcare AI Has a Cybersecurity Problem
A year ago, if you went to a healthcare security conference, AI was still on the horizon. Interesting, a little speculative, maybe useful for writing better phishing emails. But not anymore. There are documented cases where an attacker handed a...
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A Cancer Diagnosis May Not Excuse You From Work
A cancer diagnosis used to be enough to qualify as medically frail and exempt from Medicaid work requirements. A new federal rule says it no longer is, and nobody has defined what will be enough instead.In this clip from our episode “Th...
The Hidden Cost of Medicaid Work Requirements
Medicaid work requirements take effect in every expansion state by January 1, 2027. But half the states just sued to stop the rules that govern them. They’re challenging a new federal rule that narrows who counts as “medically frail” and adds p...
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Medicaid Is Now Auditing Before It Pays
Medicaid and Medicare used to pay first and chase fraud later. That model is changing fast, and the providers who haven't adapted are about to feel it.In this clip from our episode “AI and The Future Of Behavioral Health”, host John Dri...
AI and The Future Of Behavioral Health w/ Alon Joffe, Co-Founder & CEO, Eleos Health
More than 160 million Americans live in areas with a shortage of mental health providers. The clinicians who do show up are spending hours on documentation, compliance, and eligibility work that has nothing to do with patient care.Alon ...
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Why Self-Insured Employers Care About IVF Outcomes
A triplet birth in the United States costs roughly $577,000. A twin birth runs about $155,000. For a self-insured employer, that cost hits the bottom line directly.In this clip from our episode “Making Fertility Benefits An Employer Pri...
Making Fertility Benefits An Employer Priority w/ David Stern, CEO, Kindbody
Fertility benefits have gone from a Silicon Valley recruiting perk to a boardroom priority in under a decade. Employers are no longer just offering access. They are demanding measurable outcomes, transparent costs, and clinical accountability.<...
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Why AI Needs Clean Data Before It Can Help Healthcare
What if the companies profiting most from healthcare's data problem are also the ones best positioned to explain why it needs to be solved?In this clip from our episode “Health Data Is Broken And We're Paying For It”, host John Driscoll...
Health Data Is Broken And We're Paying For It w/ Michael Meucci, CEO, Arcadia
American healthcare spends an estimated $110 per member per month just to administer itself, before a single service is ever delivered. Most of that cost exists because health data still cannot move freely between the systems that need it.<...
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Why Minors Need Stronger AI Guardrails Than Adults
When a teenager expresses suicidal thoughts to an AI chatbot, what happens next?In this clip from our episode “Who Sets the Rules for AI in Medicine?”, hosts David E. Williams and John Driscoll and Dr. John Whyte, CEO of the American Me...
Who Sets the Rules for AI in Medicine? w/ Dr. John Whyte, CEO, American Medical Association
Eighty-one percent of physicians are already using AI in practice, more than double the rate from just three years ago. The tools are moving faster than the rules, and nobody has agreed on who gets to write them.Dr. John Whyte, CEO of t...
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The Difference Between Surviving and Living With Cancer
There are very few cures for cancers that have already spread. So what does a good outcome actually look like?In this clip from our episode “How Targeted Radiotherapy Is Changing Cancer Care”, host David E. Williams and John Babich, Fou...
How Targeted Radiotherapy Is Changing Cancer Care w/ John Babich, President, CSO, Ratio Therapeutics
For decades, cancer treatment has rested on three pillars: surgery, chemotherapy, and external beam radiation. A fourth is now taking shape, and it is drawing billions in investment from some of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world...
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Preparing for the Pandemic We Haven't Seen Yet w/ Dr. Dan Barouch & Kris Brown, Vector Sciences
The COVID-19 pandemic proved vaccine platforms can move at unprecedented speed. It also revealed how dangerously narrow the world's response really was, built almost entirely on a single technology.Dr. Dan Barouch and Kris Brown, Co-Fou...
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Mark Cuban on Why Patients Don’t Trust Their Medical Bills
People trust their doctor. They do not trust the bill they get afterward.In this clip from our episode “Why Healthcare Prices Are Like Fight Club”, host John Driscoll and Mark Cuban, Co-Founder of Cost Plus Drugs, break down why pricing...
Why Healthcare Prices Are Like Fight Club w/ Mark Cuban, Co-Founder, Cost Plus Drugs
Nobody at the pharmacy counter knows the real price of their medication, and almost nobody in the system actually wants them to.Mark Cuban, Co-Founder of Cost Plus Drugs, joins host John Driscoll on CareTalk to discuss why pharmacy bene...
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GLP-1s May Reduce Cancer Progression
GLP-1 drugs were designed for weight loss. Now they may be showing up in cancer research in a way nobody expected.In this clip from our episode “The Business & Science Behind the GLP-1 Boom”, hosts David E. Williams and John Driscol...
The Business & Science Behind the GLP-1 Boom
GLP-1 drugs have produced some of the most consistent weight loss results medicine has ever seen. The business of actually getting them to patients is a different story entirely.David E. Williams, President of Health Business Group, and...
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Why We Can Never Have Enough Doctors
Six million healthcare workers are missing today. By 2030, that number reaches 10 million. No amount of training will ever close that gap.In this clip from our episode “Is AI the New Dr. Google?”, host David E. Williams and Bertalan Mes...
The Future of Medicine Is Already Here w/ Bertalan Mesko, The Medical Futurist Institute
The World Health Organization projects a global shortage of 10 million healthcare workers by 2030. No training pipeline can close that gap. The only path forward runs through technology.Dr. Bertalan Meskó, Founder & Director of the ...
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Why Insulin Never Reaches the Liver
The liver is the only organ in the body that can release stored glucose to prevent low blood sugar. So why has injected insulin never been able to reach it?In this clip from our episode “Finding a Solution for GLP-1 Side Effects”, host ...
Targeting the Root Causes of Metabolic Disease w/ Bob Geho, Founder & CEO, Diasome
Every year, one in five adults with Type 1 diabetes experiences a dangerous drop in blood sugar that renders them unable to treat themselves. These severe hypoglycemic events are still happening, even though many patients now use continuous glu...
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Can Healthcare Claims Be Adjudicated in Real-Time? w/ Don Peterson, Founder & CEO, PIM Health
American hospitals now spend nearly $2 on administrative overhead for every dollar that touches direct patient care. Insurers earn billions in float by sitting on claims for weeks, providers borrow money just to stay liquid, and patients open b...
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