EP316: Unexpectedly Talking About Employers, With David Carmouche, MD, From Ochsner, a Large Health System

I don’t know what I thought we were going to talk about during my interview with David Carmouche, MD; but I’m glad it turned out exactly as it did. Lately, we’ve had a number of guests on Relentless Health Value talking from the point of view of the employer: what a self-insured employer wants and needs from the large, and small, providers in their network. In this episode, we’re flipping the script and talking about what a large provider organization wants and needs from the commercial side of its payer mix. If value-based care or risk shares are to be a thing, we can’t have, as Troy Larsgard has put it, all risk and no share.

In this health care podcast, I had the honor and pleasure of speaking with Dr. David Carmouche. Dr. Carmouche started out as a physician in a multi-specialty group. He practiced there for about 15 years before leaving to become chief medical officer at BCBS (Blue Cross Blue Shield) of Louisiana. Five years ago, Dr. Carmouche transitioned to Ochsner Health, where he is currently executive vice president of value-based care and network operations. At Ochsner, Dr. Carmouche helps lead the value-based care agenda—that’s everything from managing strategic partnerships with payers, as well as managing risk in value-based contracts for Ochsner and affiliated network partners across their ACO (accountable care organization) and CIN (clinically integrated network).

Highlighting one point that Dr. Carmouche makes early in our chat, there’s four things that have to come together for meaningful value creation for providers: (1) willingness of providers and provider leadership to think and do things different than they have historically; (2) they have to be able to affect payment for those things; (3) they have to have data and be able to access it; and then (4) some control over steering patients.

This kind of sets the stage, actually, for our fast dive, in this conversation, right into employer and commercial collaborations. Three of the four things on that list—affecting payment, data, steering patients—are right in the wheelhouse of forward-thinking employers, or commercial payers/TPAs (third-party administrators) trying hard to compete for or serve employers.

Just a quick heads-up here: Coming soon, we’re going to release a second episode with Dr. Carmouche giving some great advice for the leadership of provider organizations who are trying to figure out their transition away from FFS (fee for service) to a more risk-based, value-based model. One quick point that I thought was also relevant to the show here: It was super interesting to me how quickly Dr. Carmouche got from “transition to value” to “knows how to collaborate with other organizations.”

Here’s the pretty obvious inference: You can’t transition to value if you don’t know how to play well with others to co-create value and share the rewards of such an endeavor. There might be a broader lesson in here for whoever you are in the health care ecosystem. And I’m looking at you, pharmacy, Pharma, tech, societies, BUCAs, etc.

Thanks so much to Brian Klepper for the introduction to Dr. Carmouche.

You can learn more by visiting Dr. Carmouche’s LinkedIn page or by reading From Competition to Collaboration by Tracy Duberman and Robert Sachs. 

David Carmouche, MD, views health care from three distinct perspectives: as a physician provider, an executive for an insurance company and as a leader in a health system. Specifically, he built a large, multidisciplinary internal medicine and preventive cardiology practice in Louisiana; served as