Zac Jiwa, a federal Medicare official, delivered a eulogy of sorts at a Thursday Medicare event highlighting the successes of the Health Tech Ecosystem initiative. 

The eulogy’s subject? The clipboard. 

For the past eight months, hundreds of health tech companies have been working to meet goals set out by the federal government to make patient records more portable, create systems that import patients’ data into providers’ electronic health records systems, and stand up various patient apps. The idea is to make filling out a stack of paperwork at every doctor’s visit, on that ubiquitous clipboard, a thing of the past.

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In which RFK Jr. says the “government lies to us” while sitting in front of an HHS seal. Send news tips and podcast recommendations to John.Wilkerson@statnews.com or John_Wilkerson.07 on Signal.

First, control health care costs

Last month, a group of 12 Senate Democrats proposed a framework for rebuilding the health care system. The idea was to spur input from others ahead of when Democrats might get a chance to act on those plans.

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About 20 years ago, I stepped on stage at one of our Geisinger town halls and looked out upon a sea of people: thousands of full-time employees at an integrated health system charged with the health and well-being of millions of Pennsylvanians. 

Only a fraction of the people in that room were clinicians. 

That was the first time I fully visualized the problem: We employed more people in our revenue cycle department to process bills and reconcile data than we did doctors. And we weren’t alone. It’s the same story at every health system in America, large and small, and over the past two decades, the ratio has become dramatically more disparate. 

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Today’s the day

By law, the 2027 Medicare Advantage payment regulation must come out today. It will set the tone for how the Trump administration wants to work with the health insurance industry: as the “new sheriff in town” or just another friendly regulator.

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