Kansas City Health Care Execs: Small Plans, Providers Must Team Up to Survive

  • Jul 07, 2023

    Executives from a health plan and hospital say that payer-provider alignment and value-based payment have existential stakes — if independent, regional-scale payers and providers can’t find a way to work together through joint ventures and new payment models, they say, national firms’ acquisitions of small payers and providers will accelerate. 

    That’s according to Greg Sweat, M.D., a senior vice president and chief health officer at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City (Blue KC), and Stephen L. Reintjes, Sr., M.D., president and CEO of North Kanas City Hospital, who spoke during a June 13 session of the 2023 AHIP Conference in Portland, Oregon.  

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  • Peter Johnson

    Peter has worked as a journalist since 2011 and has covered health care since 2020. At AIS Health, Peter covers trends in finance, business and policy that affect the health insurance and pharma sectors. For Health Plan Weekly, he covers all aspects of the U.S. health insurance sector, including employer-sponsored insurance, Medicaid managed care, Medicare Advantage and the Affordable Care Act individual marketplaces. In Radar on Drug Benefits, Peter covers the operations of (and conflicts between) pharmacy benefit managers and pharmaceutical manufacturers, with a particular focus on pricing dynamics and market access. Before joining AIS Health, Peter covered transportation, public safety and local government for various outlets in Seattle, his hometown and current place of residence. He graduated with a B.A. from Colby College.

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