Encore! EP351: Everybody in the Healthcare Industry Getting Up in Everyone Else's Business, With Eric Bricker, MD

Everybody in the Healthcare Industry Getting Up in Everyone Else's Business, With Eric Bricker, MD (Encore! EP351)

In this Encore, Stacey Richter revisits her conversation with Eric Bricker, MD, founder of AHealthcareZ and medical director of SimplePay Health, about the horizontal and vertical consolidation reshaping healthcare — and why everybody, from payers to digital health disruptors, is increasingly swimming in everyone else's lane.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

✅ Why horizontal consolidation among payers, PBMs, and hospital systems has pushed commercial insurance costs up 4x the rate of other goods and services

✅ How high healthcare costs contribute to wage stagnation, since money spent on premiums is money not spent on salaries

✅ Why vertical integration — payers, providers, and PBMs all moving into each other's traditional territory — is reshaping competitive dynamics

✅ Why no competition means little incentive to improve patient experience, since there's nowhere else for members to go

✅ Why the payment change has to come first before behavior actually changes

WHY THIS MATTERS

Decades of horizontal and vertical consolidation have left patients with fewer alternatives and less negotiating power, while the resulting lack of competition removes any real incentive for payers, PBMs, or hospital systems to improve patient experience. Dr. Bricker's blunt read — "the money wins" — is a reminder that fixing this requires changing the financial incentives first, not waiting for good behavior to show up on its own.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

EP330 with John Marchica: Apple Podcasts | Spotify (pod.link, unconfirmed — Spotify outage) | Other Apps

EP343 with David Carmouche, MD: Apple Podcasts | Spotify (pod.link, unconfirmed — Spotify outage) | Other Apps

=== LINKS ===

🔗 Show Notes with all mentioned links: Episode Page

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00:00 Introduction

05:50 What is this "megatrend" happening in healthcare right now?

07:11 How has consolidation changed the healthcare landscape?

09:41 What is vertical integration within healthcare?

11:07 Why doesn't inorganic growth benefit patients?

12:52 "What is best for the patient does not necessarily make the most money."

14:02 "It's not that it's above the law…it is just intentionally obscured."

18:16 "Healthcare is glacial. It is slow."

22:36 "The largest source of healthcare costs is hospitals."

25:00 EP330 with John Marchica.

28:20 "What have the historical priorities been of the administrators of those hospitals?"

28:35 "Every hospital CFO knows that they need sick people."

29:21 EP343 with David Carmouche, MD.

30:01 "The payment change has to come first."

31:19 "The money wins."

33:16 "You've got to put the financial incentives in place…to make people actually behave the way that they should."