Houston Business Coalition on Health Adds Strategic Advisory Board
to Guide Hospital Price Transparency Task Force

HOUSTON – March 23, 2021 – To further support employers in using their collective influence to rein in hospital prices while improving quality, the non-profit Houston Business Coalition on Health (HBCH) has created a strategic advisory board. Featuring some of the nation’s thought leaders on equitable health care transformation, these advisors will help guide the HBCH Board of Directors in their efforts to drive value-based purchasing and link the price paid to the quality of health care received.

“This team of experts will help HBCH understand the implications of, and develop strategies from, rapidly expanding databases as a tool to work collaboratively with hospitals, health plans and their employer clients,” said Chris Skisak, PhD, HBCH Executive Director. “Ultimately, we as a nation are moving away from the current fee for service model of delivery to solutions based on patient outcomes,
not number of services provided. The quality of life for employees and their families has slowly eroded as a result of seemingly insupportable health care pricing.”

HBCH Advisory Board:

• Christopher Whaley, PhD, Policy Researcher at RAND Corporation, and Professor, Pardee RAND Graduate School
• Marilyn Bartlett, CPA, CMA, CFM, Senior Policy Fellow, National Academy of State Health Policy
• Vivian Ho, PhD, James A. Baker III Institute Chair in Health Economics, and Director, Center for Health and Biosciences and Professor in the Department of Economics at Rice University, and Professor in the Department of Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine
• Ken Janda, JD, Founder and Principal, Wild Blue Health Solutions, LLC, and Adjunct Professor, College of Medicine at University of Houston

Over the past few years, HBCH employers continue to be engaged in the national RAND Hospital Price Transparency project and Christopher Whaley is the Principal Investigator of this national project. Previous RAND reports reveal that Houston employers continue to pay two to five times the fair-priced Medicare rate for the same service by the same provider.

Marilyn Bartlett was named one of 2019 Fortune 50 Greatest Leaders for her efforts to save Montana’s state employee group health plan from bankruptcy. The forensic accountant has developed a NASHP financial report derived from a hospital’s annual Medicare cost report to analyze to what extent its payments cover reported patient care costs. Reports generated for several of Houston’s flagship
hospitals suggest that profit margins from employer contracts are far more than what is needed for a hospital to sustainably provide high quality health care.

Vivian Ho is a nationally renowned health care economist has published widely about the unintended consequences of hospital consolidation. Her team at Rice University is automating the NASHP report for statewide and national use.

Ken Janda brings his 40 plus years of insight and local knowledge as a health plan executive including 12 years as CEO of Houston’s Community Health Choice.

About Houston Business Coalition on Health
The non-profit Houston Business Coalition on Health is the leading resource for Houston employers and their health services providers dedicated to providing health benefits at a sustainable cost while improving the quality and patient experience of their delivery through effective benefits design. With more than 60 members, HBCH represents 800,000 employer-sponsored lives. HBCH a member of the
National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions. For additional information visit our website houstonbch.org and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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