Value-based care can improve outcomes and lower costs, but only when the incentives, workflows, and data all pull in the same direction.

In this episode of Straight Outta Health IT, Dr. Shannon Decker, founder and CEO of VBC One, unpacks the good, the bad, and the ugly of value-based care and what it takes to succeed beyond the buzzwords. She explains why many organizations struggle when they jump in without true readiness, especially when contracts shift risk faster than teams can build the infrastructure to manage it. The conversation spotlights the practical difference between chasing measures and building a system that reliably delivers prevention, coordination, and better patient experience.

Dr. Decker shares lessons from years of hands-on work in Medicare, quality, and risk adjustment, including where performance quietly slips through the cracks. She breaks down risk adjustment in plain language and shows how incomplete documentation and messy data flow can translate into fewer resources for high-acuity patients. Instead of treating coding as a compliance task, she frames it as a visibility problem that affects staffing, care planning, and long-term sustainability.

The episode also gets tactical about what actually moves the needle. Dr. Decker points to avoidable utilization as a major opportunity and discusses simple, repeatable practices such as tighter triage, clearer patient education, and post-discharge medication reconciliation that help prevent unnecessary ED visits and readmissions. She also cautions against the “ugly” side of incentives, including gaming behaviors, cherry-picking, and equity blind spots, and offers a grounded path forward that prioritizes outcomes over optics.

Tune in to learn how to build a practical value-based strategy that improves performance, protects patients, and keeps incentives honest.

Resources

• Connect with Dr. Shannon Decker on LinkedIn!

• Follow VBC One on LinkedIn, reach out via email, and visit their website.

Caregiving for Alzheimer’s isn’t just hard; it’s isolating, invisible, and full of grief that never gets a clean ending.

In this episode, Dr. Caron Leid, counselor, educator, author, and caregiver advocate, discusses how her mother’s early Alzheimer’s diagnosis and later aphasia changed everything and how the system largely left her to figure it out alone. She names the ambiguous grief of losing a parent in slow motion, and the emotional whiplash of being a daughter while also becoming the decision-maker.

Dr. Leid gets real about the “impossible choice” caregivers live with, especially in the sandwich generation. She talks about the guilt of choosing between a child and an aging parent, the exhaustion of constant vigilance, and how martyr culture rewards caregivers with praise instead of practical support. That dynamic can keep people stuck, suffering quietly, and feeling like asking for help is failing.

She also brings a trauma-informed, schema-based lens to caregiving. What we react to is not only today’s crisis, but old family patterns, cultural expectations, and the layered impact of racism and microaggressions on access, trust, and how black and brown families are treated in care settings. She explains why informal caregiving and formal healthcare work are not the same job.

Tune in and learn how to center caregivers as the backbone of care, without romanticizing their burnout.

• Connect with Dr. Leid on LinkedIn here and visit her website!

• Check out Dr. Leid’s books: Alzheimer’s: What They Forget to Tell You: A Personal Journey, Self Love: What They Forget to Tell You, Grief: What They Forget to Tell You, and BS and Other Childhood Tales We Learned by Dr. Caron Leid

Strategic credibility is what turns a strong health tech product into a clear yes for buyers, investors, and health systems.

In this episode, Sabrina Runbeck, a healthcare media strategist, explores why innovative founders often remain invisible and how to become an obvious choice in a crowded market. She explains how many leaders mistake credentials for credibility, getting stuck in a “hyper-achiever” loop of collecting titles instead of demonstrating real market impact. Sabrina also highlights common startup gaps, including weak go-to-market focus, unclear positioning, and teams strong in science and tech but light on business execution.

She introduces an inside-out model for visibility and growth that begins with product strength, then builds human capital and culture, followed by social capital and consistent messaging. This includes alignment across decks, LinkedIn, websites, and outreach, with a focus on signals over noise, because impressions only matter if they lead to conversations and conversions. The discussion also addresses additional barriers faced by women founders and founders of color, emphasizing self-awareness, authentic leadership, and choosing the right arenas for visibility.

Sabrina shares how initiatives like the Health Tech Impact Awards provide third-party validation, coaching, and structured visibility that help accelerate trust. She closes with practical steps founders can take now, such as running an AI reputation check and prioritizing sellability, sustainability, and scalability as core growth drivers.

Tune in and learn how to build credibility that gets you chosen!

Resources

• Connect with and follow Sabrina Runbeck on LinkedIn.

• Follow PulsePoint Path on LinkedIn and explore their website!

• Submit your Health Tech Impact Awards nomination here!