Payment Models That Support Lifestyle Medicine

Our guest this week on the podcast is Robert Pearl, MD, a lifestyle medicine champion and leader. He is the former CEO of The Permanente Medical Group (1999-2017), the largest United States medical group, and the former president of The Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group (2009-2017). In those two roles, he led 10,000 physicians and 38,000 staff. Currently, he cohosts a podcast and is an author, clinical professor, contributor to Forbes, and speaker.

In this podcast episode, we discussed the economics of health care and different payment models that can support preventative care and lifestyle medicine. Dr. Pearl laid out his perspective on the issues with fee-for-service payment models—mainly that it incentivizes disease treatment rather than prevention. He proposed an alternative model known as capitation, which is the model Kaiser Permanente uses. Capitation pays a group of doctors an established, upfront fee to fulfill medical needs for a defined population of patients.

 Listen to this fascinating conversation to learn more about the following:

• Capitation versus fee-for-service models
• Dr. Pearl’s vision for how clinicians can contribute to building an alternative market for lifestyle medicine
• The role of artificial intelligence in supporting patient education, compliance and outcomes
• Using telemedicine and groups to make lifestyle medicine more economical
• And much more!