Q: How would you define healthcare?

 

Patterson: For me, it’s anything from people engaging in preventive health, things like regular exercise, getting enough sleep, having a well-balanced diet, maybe even having things as simple as appropriate housing, appropriate food, not smoking, those kinds of things. Healthcare also means being able to have access to medical treatments, be it procedures or drugs or surgery. That in and of itself, in our society here in the states, isn’t really necessarily a guarantee. But to me I think healthcare, or a robust healthcare system, is designed in a way that people can have access to the basics that they need to maintain their health status.

 

Q: In your background, what are some of the challenges that you as a professional have faced?

 

Feagin:  Unfortunately, I too often see the flaws of the delivery system. And what I’m talking about, which is a big topic with the Affordable Care Act, is the fact that Alabama didn’t expand Medicaid. Because of that we unfortunately have this large group of people who cannot afford care. When I see healthcare delivery, I see partisan politics played out and we didn’t get coverage for some people who really needed it. This then puts UAB Hospital at a disadvantage because of their disproportionate share of the payments they get will be cut because they were expecting Medicaid to get expanded. So when I think of healthcare, I think of a system that is probably more broken than it was because people tried to fix it and it got pretty much destroyed. Well, it probably wasn’t that great to begin with and then hacked up. We’re looking at real problems down the road.

 

Patterson: It’s going to be unaffordable more quickly than we think, unfortunately. We’re going to have to do something about it. Places like UAB are doing that, we participate in a Medicare Shared Savings Programs, which is great. But the issue is that hospitals are paid if they do more procedures and while quality metrics influence some of our reimbursement, quality isn’t the driver - quantity is.  We need to continue this shift away from quantity to quality, and focus on managing cost and strive for better outcomes.

 

Q: What would your advice be to graduates discussing healthcare and benefits with their employer?

 

Patterson: I would probably tell most new employees to pay close attention to the overall package that is offered by the employer. There’s things to pay attention to, particularly if you’re a young person and you don’t have any chronic health problems, like the ability to have a company that offers maybe high-deductible plans, where you pay a fair amount out of pocket but anything catastrophic can be covered. You can get that at a much much less cost than the traditional plan. So looking for a company that offers variety as opposed to only one option, that’s what I would look for in a potential employer.

 

Q: Do you agree with insurance plans being provided for only full-time employees within companies or do you think it should branch out to part-time as well?

 

Feagin: Yeah I’d say from an insurance standpoint you’ve got the option for them to take coverage on the exchanges. The Affordable Care Act has been really hard on health insurance plans, especially the health insurance plans that went into the exchanges, like Aetna, Cigna, all those big plans, Blue Cross lost a lot of money in those exchanges so the health insurance companies are just looking to scrap by at this point. Viva Health didn’t go into the exchange because we didn’t have enough risk to go into the exchanges. If we did, we wouldn’t be talking, I wouldn’t have my job, it’s that bad. So when ACA pulled back and adjusted part time, I think they lowered the hours to 30 hours. They really helped those part-time employees. But I don’t agree with that, because they had the option for the individual package with the exchange, they should go there to get it. And generally, you’re not going to have the same commitment with someone who is working part time and providing health insurance is a benefit, like saying “Hey, we want to do this for you, since you’re committing to us.”

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