Episode 127: The ins and outs of Providers becoming Payer/Providers with Kris Smith, MD MPP and Chief Medical Officer of CareConnect, Sr VP of PHM, and Medical Director of Northwell Health
Relentless Health ValueMarch 06, 201730:0541.31 MB

Episode 127: The ins and outs of Providers becoming Payer/Providers with Kris Smith, MD MPP and Chief Medical Officer of CareConnect, Sr VP of PHM, and Medical Director of Northwell Health

As Senior Vice President in the Office of Population Health Management, Dr. Smith provides clinical leadership for all of Northwell’s population health activities. He is also the Medical Director for Health Solutions, Northwell’s care management organization and is the Chief Medical Officer for CareConnect, Northwell’s insurance company. Prior to these responsibilities he led system-wide care continuum initiatives in the post-acute setting as medical director for Post-Acute Care Services.

Dr. Smith is board certified in Internal Medicine as well as Hospice and Palliative care. He maintains an active clinical practice as a house call physician in Northwell’s nationally recognized home-based primary care program.

Dr. Smith, an associate professor at Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine, has published a number of papers on advanced care models for the frail elderly and has been a co-investigator on a number of grants investigating the outcomes of high-intensity primary care programs. He has been invited to give regional and national talks on health policy, the frail elderly and the intersection of payment reform and clinical redesign.

Dr. Smith has worked with regional and national associations such as the Greater New York Hospital Association, the American College of Physicians, Center to Advance Palliative Care, the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care and the American Association of Home Care Medicine on health care reform. He is the executive sponsor for a number of governmental demonstration projects including Medicare’s Independence at Home, Bundled Payment for Care Improvement and the New York State Health Home.

Dr. Smith graduated with a degree in sociology from Princeton University and received a Master of Public Policy in health policy from Harvard University, JFK School of Government. He received his Medical Degree from Boston University School of Medicine and completed a residency and chief residency in Internal Medicine at the Mount Sinai Medical Center. Prior to joining Northwell he was an assistant professor at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and an assistant program director for the Internal Medicine Residency Program.


00:00 How CareConnect came into being.
04:50 Who CareConnect is aimed at.
05:10 The ultimate goal of CareConnect.
05:30 How becoming a Payer/Provider benefits the Consumer.
07:40 The efficiencies of being part of a Payer/Provider organization.
09:15 The classic Payer difficulties that go away by becoming a Payer/Provider.
12:30 “The work of a partnership between a Payer and a Provider is never done.”
13:00 “How do you have a process to make sure your standards allow for the unexpected?”
15:00 Folding in Precision Medicine into Standard of Care.
15:30 “You have to think of Population Health as a tool for getting a more precise plan for individual patients.”
17:40 “We need to be vigilant that exceptions should be exceptional.”
21:30 “Patients really trust their Providers.”
21:45 “When it comes to Medical Care and Clinical Decision Making, it’s best if that’s spearheaded by the Provider side.”
22:30 What working with Providers looks like.
25:25 How CareConnect is aligning with Physicians.

digital,health,healthcare,marketing,payer,pharma,provider,tech,northwell health,

Recent Episodes

EP476: Talking Whistleblowing and the Pharma Rebates Whistleblower Case With an Actual Whistleblower, With Ann Lewandowski
May 15, 2025
476
35:4732.75 MB

EP476: Talking Whistleblowing and the Pharma Rebates Whistleblower Case With an Actual Whistleblower, With Ann Lewandowski

Alright, first off, let me calm down any attorneys right outta the gate here. We will not be talking about—at all—the legal activity that is currently ongoing that my guest today, Ann Lewandowski, is involved with. The suit mostly on our radar today is the one where an EBC (employee benefit consult...

EP475: Is This a Moment or a Movement? With Peter Hayes
May 08, 2025
475
34:2531.51 MB

EP475: Is This a Moment or a Movement? With Peter Hayes

I was talking to Peter Hayes, my guest this week; and I said, “Peter, you post a lot about many, many different topics on LinkedIn and elsewhere. If you had to roll up all of your posts into a few main, I don’t know, change-making vectors or forces of change, roads to Damascus, what would they be? ...

EP474: Private Equity in Healthcare—The Big Data Points You Really Need to Know, All Together in One Episode, With Yashaswini Singh, PhD
May 01, 2025
474
41:2637.93 MB

EP474: Private Equity in Healthcare—The Big Data Points You Really Need to Know, All Together in One Episode, With Yashaswini Singh, PhD

Lots of talk and lots of research these days about private equity in healthcare, so I am so pleased to bring you Yashaswini Singh, PhD, who is one of the authors of a lot of that research. Dr. Yashaswini Singh has been spending the last several years trying to understand the corporate transformatio...

EP473: Keeping Patients out of the ER: How Trusted Relationships in Primary Care Should Work. A Take 2 With Kenny Cole, MD
April 24, 2025
473
34:5331.93 MB

EP473: Keeping Patients out of the ER: How Trusted Relationships in Primary Care Should Work. A Take 2 With Kenny Cole, MD

I’m revisiting, in a take two, this episode with Dr. Kenny Cole because I’m listening to it this time with a new focus. That focus is the theme that keeps coming up over and over and over again on Relentless Health Value these past few months. For a full transcript of this episode, click here . If ...

EP472: The Well-Honed, Three-Prong Hospital Playbook to Maximize Revenue From High-Cost Claimants, With Eric Bricker, MD
April 17, 2025
472
35:1732.3 MB

EP472: The Well-Honed, Three-Prong Hospital Playbook to Maximize Revenue From High-Cost Claimants, With Eric Bricker, MD

For a full transcript of this episode, click here . So, let’s continue themes from prior episodes, most particularly the episode from last week with Christine Hale, MD, MBA ( EP471 ), which was also about high-cost claimants and just the impact that they have on the wallets of self-insured employer...

EP471: High-Cost Claimants in 2025 and Beyond—What Is Really Expensive Not to Know? With Christine Hale, MD, MBA
April 10, 2025
471
34:4131.75 MB

EP471: High-Cost Claimants in 2025 and Beyond—What Is Really Expensive Not to Know? With Christine Hale, MD, MBA

Recently on Relentless Health Value, we’ve been tinkering around with a few recurring themes—recurring through lines—that are just true about American healthcare these days. For a full transcript of this episode, click here . If you enjoy this podcast, be sure to subscribe to the free weekly newsle...

EP470: Continuing the ER and Primary Care Through Line Over to Rural Hospitals and Healthcare, With Nikki King, DHA
April 03, 2025
470
35:1032.2 MB

EP470: Continuing the ER and Primary Care Through Line Over to Rural Hospitals and Healthcare, With Nikki King, DHA

So, the show today, it’s sort of an encore but not really an encore because I recorded this whole new introduction that you are currently listening to. And I also did a few inserts that we popped into the show itself. Inserts from the future, you might say. For a full transcript of this episode, cl...

Listen and Follow

Sponsored by Aventria Health Group
©2025 BD Bridges LLC. All Rights Reserved.