Radio Advisory

For years, regional health plans benefited from powerful tailwinds: Medicare Advantage growth, Medicaid expansion, and a prospering ACA marketplace. But many of those growth engines have stalled, just as new pressures emerged: rising utilization, runaway spend, pricing uncertainty and more scrutiny from patients and policy makers. The result is a dramatically different financial reality for health plans. In 2024, only eight of 33 B...

In this episode, Abby Burns welcomes back Megan Zweig, CEO of Rock Health Advisory, to answer audience questions submitted during Advisory Board's Research Summit in Carlsbad, California.

Together, they explore how health systems are engaging with the explosion in consumer-generated data, the role of medtech and pharma in AI-enabled innovation, and why AI enablement may be able to unlock personalized care for a wider range of pati...

Oncology is simultaneously one of healthcare's greatest success stories and one of its biggest financial challenges. Cancer care continues to benefit from breakthroughs in precision medicine and early detection, even as oncology spending is projected to approach $200 billion by 2029. At the same time, cancer programs are facing rising patient volumes, growing demand for advanced therapies, and mounting pressure to improve access an...

Value-based care is entering its accountability era. Participation in value-based arrangements continues to grow, even as financial pressures weigh down on both providers and payers. But CMMI is setting a clear tone about what it expects from stakeholders moving forward: results.

Host Abby Burns sits down with Advisory Board experts Clare Wirth, Payton Grimes, and Rhea Jain to explore what’s changed — and what hasn&rsq...

After years of uncertainty, many healthcare executives say they’ve experienced more change in the past five years than in their entire careers. Policy shifts, evolving patient expectations, and rapid advances in AI are all colliding at once — forcing leaders to rethink how they operate and where they invest.

But here’s the surprising part: the overwhelming sentiment isn’t panic. It’s clarity.

In this...

Digital health funding is heating up—but where are the dollars going? And what does it mean for health systems’ digital health strategies?

In this live episode, recorded at Advisory Board’s Research Summit, host Abby Burns sits down with Megan Zweig, President and CEO of Rock Health Advisory, for an update on what’s going on in the world of digital health funding. Together, they unpack what investment activ...

As health systems anticipate greater downward pressures on margins in the months and years to come, they’re homing their growth strategies accordingly. As we’ve been saying in our research the past couple of years, “sustainability” is now the name of the game. Here’s the conundrum: our research also shows that 90% of systems are betting on the same growth plays as their competition. And more and more, ...

CMS continues to pull on the levers it has at its disposal to rein in national healthcare spend, including rulemaking around Medicare Advantage. In April, CMS announced the final rate for MA plans for CY2027, after a controversial proposed rule generated animated pushback — and a fair bit of panic — among payers.

In this episode, host Abby Burns speaks with Alex Balmes, Vice President of Actuarial Services at Optum, to...

Maternity care touches nearly every corner of the U.S. health system. About 25% of all hospitalizations involve a mother or newborn, and maternity spending accounts for roughly 0.8% of U.S. GDP — making it one of the most economically significant service lines in health care. Against that backdrop, a little noticed decision to unbundle maternity billing codes represents a generational shift in how pregnancy, delivery, and po...

Health care leaders are navigating one of the most volatile policy environments in decades. The next major reform fight hasn’t arrived yet — but in its place, a steady wave of rulemaking, regulatory shifts, and enforcement actions is driving real change. Policies are evolving faster, reversing more often, and creating a level of uncertainty that makes even the most seasoned strategists question what to act on, what to w...

After a decidedly difficult few years in the world of nursing, things have seemingly gotten better — at least, on paper. And that’s reflective of a lot of hard work on the part of nursing leaders. But when we look at how long nurses plan to stay in the profession, we see a different story taking shape.

In this episode of Radio Advisory, host Abby Burns is joined by Advisory Board nursing expert Ali Knight and Optum exp...

Across the industry, leaders are talking about a “battle of the bots”—with payers and providers racing to deploy AI across the revenue cycle. But that narrative may be more hype than reality.

In this episode, Rae Woods is joined by Advisory Board experts Isis Monteiro and Elysia Culver to separate fact from fiction. They break down where AI is actually delivering value today—and why it’s showing up as...

After more than a decade of effort, healthcare still struggles with the same consumer pain points: affordability, access, and trust. Despite investments in price transparency, virtual care, and navigation tools, the patient experience remains fragmented, leaving leaders to wonder whether healthcare consumerism ever truly delivered on its promise.

In this episode, host Rae Woods invites Advisory Board experts Devin Airey, Shay Prat...

What has price transparency data taught us about healthcare prices? Price transparency laws were originally put in place to make it possible for patients to act like consumers. We’re not there yet. But as federal requirements and enforcement tighten, health plans and providers are sharing more and better data, giving us a clearer picture of the price of care across services, organizations, and markets.

In this episode, host ...

The U.S. healthcare system is approaching a major inflection point. Nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts are set to take effect in January 2027, driven by new work requirements, more frequent eligibility checks, and tighter limits on state financing.

While the policy changes are months away, their consequences are already clear: millions of Americans are at risk of losing coverage, and provider organizations — many operating ...

In this bonus episode of Radio Advisory, managing producer Chris Phelps and host and executive producer Rae Woods compare notes from the 2026 ViVE digital health conference. They break down what stood out on the main stage and the show floor—from where AI is over and under hyped, to why point solutions keep falling short, to what it actually takes to scale technology in healthcare. They also surface the big questions they sti...

Payers are operating at the center of converging pressures: rising costs, accelerating utilization, heightened public scrutiny, and a wave of CMS reforms that are reshaping expectations around transparency, interoperability, prior authorization, and accountability. Medicare Advantage has become the front line for these shifts—exposing tensions between regulatory oversight, margin compression, and growing demands for better me...

Academic medical centers (AMCs) sit at the heart of U.S. healthcare, driving scientific discovery, providing crucial clinical care, and training the next generation of clinicians. They also face mounting financial pressures and a shifting policy landscape that threatens their ability to sustainably deliver on this tripartite mission. And their complex structures make rapid business model transformation tough — at a time when ...

Employer-sponsored insurance is reaching a tipping point. What was once a predictable 2–4% annual increase in employer health spending has given way to double digit growth, driven by surging drug costs, rising utilization across all age groups, and escalating provider rates. For many employers—especially smaller organizations with less margin for error—absorbing these costs is no longer viable. As economic conditi...