Editor-In-Chief Attends HLTH

Written by Judith Riess, MTM editor-in-chief

It was my privilege to attend HLTH, (pronounced health) held October 26th to 30th, 2019. This, their second conference, had 6200 attendees, almost 400 exhibitors, five tracks covering everything from bold new entrants and technologies in the healthcare field to communities at the crossroads of health. Presentations covered how cannabis is helping improve the lives of those with epilepsy, Alzheimer’s and autism to innovative solutions to cope with the mental health crisis.

There were 25 General Sessions that brought together C Level health executives, CEO’s and Founders of innovative solutions in genome therapy, telehealth and new technologies to improve the quality of healthcare as well as improve delivery of healthcare by providing coverage where people live.

HLTH is an industry created event designed to bringtogether senior leaders to address the most pressing issues facing health careand provide the opportunity and impetus to bring about revolutionary changewhich is desperately needed in health care today. There were diverse groups ofparticipants from the heads of major corporations to government executives, tostart ups with innovative problem solutions.

Leaders all discussed needed changes to disrupt the current healthcare and provide care where it can do the most good – in communities where people live. The projection was that telehealth, healthcare centers within communities and grocery stores, drugstores and your local Walmart super store will be providing healthcare to the general public in their communities. There is also a huge move to provide better and more home care and how it benefits the public served.

The $3.5 trillion dollar healthcare industry has caught the attention of industry and as cost continue to rise Americans are looking for alternatives to long waits and high prices. With retail pharmacies like CVS Health acquiring insurers (Aetna), and tech companies like Amazon getting into the pharmacy business (Pill Pack), and Kroger investing more in keeping its shoppers healthy with the help of food and Kaiser Permanente aiding older adults and homeless to find homes,  healthcare is definitely in a state of flux and retailers are aware of the opportunities.

Larry Merlo, CEO and President of CVS talked about the change brought about with their 2018 purchase of Aetna which combined nearly 10,000 pharmacies, a drug-benefits business, and one of the biggest US health insurers. The result is a healthcare company that has a tremendous amount of power over how healthcare gets paid for and provided to people. The  $70 billion acquisition accelerated a repurposing of its drug stores, which they are calling Health Hubs.

Marcus Osborne, VP Health Tranformation Walmart gave s a tour of Walmart’shealthcare clinic in Dallas, Georgia.  Walmart’snew centers come equipped with primary care,counseling, home care, eye and hearing exams, and dentistry. The center is staffed inpartnership with local healthcare professionals so that patients can get everythingfrom health insurance help to an X-Ray within the clinic.

The goal is to do for healthcare what Walmart's supercenter stores did for retail: offer a breadth of services conveniently and at a much cheaper price point than rivals, for example, a primary care visit costs $40, while a dental visit costs $25. Osborne explained that the top cost was $60 and people could pay with insurance or cash.

Dan Trigub, Uber and Megan Callhan, Lyft, explainedtheir companies involvement with getting people to and from doctor visits,labs, etc. and the cost savings from providing transportation to those whoneeded to avoid missed appointments.

In Mark Cuban’s interview he talked about theunfair cost of drugs in the United States which are three times that of othercountries and he is going to provide drugs to patient by having a pharmacy clublike Costco or Sam’s where you pay a $100 membership for the year and you getwhatever prescription you need for $1. He wanted to just give the prescriptionsto those that needed but found that was against the law so came up with theclub membership as an alternative. He has already received FDA approval, talkedto both sides of Congress and numbers of others to understand the problem andhas decided that is the solution he can provide.  He expressed gratitude for what he had beengiven and wants to give back and help to keep the US the “greatest country”.

Seema Verma, Administrator for Medicare andMedicaid Services explained to the audience why Medicare for All was notfeasible and the trillions of dollars it would cost which as a country the UScould not sustain. She went chapter and versus discussing the Affordable CareAct and why it had raised cost and left a number of Americans without healthcare and therefore vulnerable and also discussed changes and rules that havebeen put in place by her office to aid patients and providers.  She also said they are having a series ofround table discussions with the media and others to discuss changes being madeso the public and healthcare providers better understand services and rules.

There were many other excellent presentationscovering gene therapy, genomics, telehealth, rules an regulations and newtechnologies that aid the public and make healthcare more accessible.