ABOUT THE STANDARD
By RaeAnn • Founder & CEO, HLTHWORKS
COVER STORY
The Standard / Article 16
THE ECONOMICS OF HEALTHCARE • NO. 16
Healthcare AI Survey: Deployment Is Outpacing Governance
Across health plans, health systems, physician groups, and the vendors serving them, deployment is running at roughly double the rate of strategy. Nearly a third do not measure return. Four in ten report that no quality measure has improved yet. None of that is a reason to slow down. It is a reason to build the foundation the deployment is standing on.
September 2026 • AI Benchmarking Survey
The Economics of Healthcare
A serialized argument, in order. Start at the beginning or jump to any article.
03
The Economics of Health, and the missing Accountability Factor
How more than half a trillion Medicare Advantage dollars move through five sets of hands, and why none is paid for the member’s health span.
READ >>
04
Four capitation structures, who captures the upside, and why revising 2027 budgets and designing 2028 contracts around whole-person care is the real fix.
05
06
07
From Value-Based Care to Whole-Person Care
08
Who Owns Artificial Intelligence?
Ask four executives in the same organization and you will get four answers. Not because they disagree, but because the agenda is attached to people rather than to structures, and the people are moving.
09
The Chief Transformation Officer
Healthcare has adopted the title faster than it has defined the job. Four organizations using the same two words mean four different things, and the difference is not stylistic. It follows the margin.
10
Medicare Advantage Mass Exit for 2027
The cost curve moved up as the premium factors moved down. Everything else in the Medicare Advantage exits follows from that.
11
The Hemsley Turnaround Model
The fourth largest company in the world spent a year deliberately getting smaller. Revenue held flat. Operating earnings rose fifty five percent. Wall Street re-rated it.
13
No Surprises, No Ceiling
15
AI in Health Plan Member Experience Is a Risky Venture
16
Healthcare AI Survey: Deployment Is Outpacing Governance
What 133 Healthcare Companies Reported
FROM THE ARCHIVE
Analysis, commentary, and field notes across payer, provider, and policy.
Healthcare AI Survey: Deployment Is Outpacing Governance – What 133 Healthcare Companies Reported
Across health plans, health systems, physician groups, and the vendors serving them, deployment is running…
AI in Health Plan Member Experience Is a Risky Venture
Three regulations already on the books were written on the assumption that member outreach is…
Nothing to Inspect
The compliance function was built to verify that a process was followed. Artificial intelligence produces…
No Surprises, No Ceiling: The Design Flaw in the Law That Worked
Congress removed the patient from the transaction and left the price to arbitration. Six years…
Centene and the Limits of Discipline
A company can do everything the turnaround literature asks of it, three years early and…
The Hemsley Turnaround Model
The fourth largest company in the world spent a year deliberately getting smaller. Revenue held…
Medicare Advantage Mass Exit for 2027
The cost curve moved up as the premium factors moved down. Everything else in the…
The Chief Transformation Officer
Healthcare has adopted the title faster than it has defined the job. Four organizations using…
Who Owns Artificial Intelligence?
Ask four executives in the same organization and you will get four answers. Not because…
From Value-Based Care to Whole-Person Care
Licensed nurses and medical assistants spend 6.1 hours per physician per week entering information into…
The Audit Mandate Comes to Healthcare AI
A single state just made independent AI audits the law. The reach will not stop…
Whole-Person Care: The Benefits Are Already There
We do not need to invent new benefits to protect HealthSpan. We need to stop…
HealthSpan: How We Should Measure a Life
HealthSpan is not the years you are free of disease, because almost no one is.…
Value-Based Care: What It Pays For, Who Wins, and Where to Start Fixing It in 2027
Value-based care was supposed to align the system around outcomes instead of volume. It is…
Welcome to the AI Swamp – AI Doesn’t Create Complexity. Leadership Does.
EXECUTIVE EDITORIAL Healthcare is about to spend billions of dollars on AI while missing the…
Healthcare Isn’t Too Expensive. We’re Designing It Wrong.
Every year, healthcare leaders prepare for another renewal cycle knowing one thing with certainty. Healthcare…
Mark Cuban Didn’t Fix Pharmacy. He Exposed How Broken It Was.
For years, healthcare executives defended the pharmaceutical supply chain with the same tired argument: “It’s…
America Does Not Just Have a Prescription Cost Problem. It Has a Prescribing Accountability Problem.
Every month, millions of Americans walk away from prescriptions. The easy explanation is cost. And…
Healthcare has a Trust Problem. Is AI solving it or making it worse?
Healthcare executives keep talking about: AI digital transformation consumer engagement interoperability navigation personalization But the…
The Lab of the Future Isn’t About AI — It’s About Performance, Intelligence and Expansion
Across the diagnostics industry, leaders like Labcorp and Sonora Quest Laboratories are making meaningful investments…
What Sonora Quest Has Shared About Their AI Moves
Sonora Quest has been quieter publicly, but there are still important indicators. 1. Digital Pathology…
READ THE STANDARD FIRST
New editorials on the economics and redesign of healthcare, delivered as they publish.