Sg2 Blog

Perhaps one of the hottest topics in healthcare today, Medicare Advantage (MA) is anticipated to have a monumental year in 2023. Not only do Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections indicate 2023 will be the year MA penetration surpasses the symbolic majority threshold of 50% nationally, but also major regulatory changes are set to be enacted or finalized that will impact both plan sponsors a...

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) has opened the application window for the Bundled Payment for Care Improvement Advanced (BPCI-A) program for the third and final time. Through May 31, 2023, provider organizations can submit a non-binding application to participate in the program’s two additional model years. The program extension may be an opportunity to work towards o...

The health care industry is facing economic headwinds: surging inflation, pandemic-driven staffing shortages and rising competition from novel disrupters. About half of all hospitals reported a loss in 2022, according to Kaufman Hall, and the outlook for 2023 isn’t much better. Today’s conditions demand a new business model, one that centers on customers first—not products or s...

As part of Sg2’s value-based care (VBC) analysis and market research, we review the quarterly earnings calls from a subset of publicly traded legacy payers and VBC-focused entrants. The summary is designed to highlight emerging trends and dynamics in these closely related industries, especially as they tie to VBC. The following post draws from recently released earnings call transcripts fro...

This post was originally published on Sg2’s parent company Vizient Inc’s blog. In today’s rapidly expanding direct-to-employer contracting sphere, it is of critical importance that employers understand the entire value equation. Too often, an employer’s focus is solely on a discount off what they are currently spending on a per-unit basis and doesn’t consider the myr...

Nearly 16 years ago, I made the fortuitous choice to join a small but mighty team of health care change agents at a company called Sg2. In a conference room in Skokie, IL, Sg2’s founder, the late Michael Sachs, addressed a team of about 20 new hires (representing about 20 percent of the rapidly growing company) with what I came to understand was his everyday passion: health care and our need...

Sg2, a Vizient company, is pleased to announce the addition of Laura P Jacobs as a Senior Advisor in its consulting practice for value-based care. “Laura is one of the greatest minds in health care with an innate ability to see challenges clearly and successfully drive change,” says Sg2 senior consulting principal Tawnya Bosko, PhD, DHA. “I have had the privilege of having her a...

Note: Vizient's David Levine, MD, FACEP, Group Senior Vice President, Advanced Analytics and Product Management and Simrit Sandhu, Executive Vice President, Strategic Transformation and Clinical-Supply Solutions also contributed to this report. Health system leaders have faced unprecedented challenges over the past three years. The pandemic caused a sharp decline in inpatient volumes and a tempor...

Each year Sg2 debuts the latest enrollment projections from our five-year Insurance Coverage Estimates (ICE) demand forecast. The team considers ZIP code level, age, federal poverty level, ethnicity and gender data to meaningfully distribute the population across financial groups. The following national trends were key inputs to the 2023 ICE model. Note: Numbers may not add due to rounding. Sourc...

Our opinions, beliefs and values influence our choice of words and phrases. However, we are not always conscious of the reverse — that our choice of language can influence our opinions, beliefs, and values. This is a highly overlooked factor in humans’ adaptability to change. When we use terms that have a significant and emotional meaning in one context to another, we bring that contex...