[S2E8] Vincent Catalano: Hot Health Take - The Diagnosis Is In

What do interior designers, CEOs, and conference-goers have in common? Strong opinions about healthcare.

Vincent Catalano was in Orlando two weeks ago at KBIS, the National Kitchen and Bath Industry Show, alongside his wife, Kerrie Kelly, Chair of the Board of Directors for NKBA and CEO and Creative Director of Kerrie Kelly Studio. While there, he did what any good healthcare consultant would do: he started asking people how they'd fix the system.

The answers? Refreshingly honest.

In this solo episode, Vincent breaks down four themes that kept coming up in those conversations:

Mental Health Access: Too many providers are out of network, leaving cash pay as the only option. And most employees don't even know their EAP exists.

Insurance Complexity: Pre-authorizations, rising premiums, and zero transparency. For many families, health insurance now costs as much as a mortgage.

US vs. Canada: A Canadian CEO at the show offered a perspective that stopped Vincent in his tracks. Healthcare as a national right, not a business. It's a contrast worth sitting with.

Personal Responsibility: One attendee made a simple but powerful point. Fix yourself before you try to fix the system. Eat real food. Move your body. Take ownership of your health.

These are the conversations happening in coffee shops, living rooms, hallways and conference floors across America. Vincent is just bringing them to the mic.

🎙️ Subscribe, share, and let us know: what's YOUR hot health take?

• YouTube: @CLEARlyBeneficialPodcast
• Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/clearlybeneficialpodcast
• Website: www.clearhcs.com 

This episode is brought to you by HealthNEXT, transforming healthcare culture through innovative solutions and strategic guidance. Learn more at healthnext.com.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the host and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any organization mentioned. This content is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, financial, or professional advice.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Clearly Beneficial podcast,

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the show where we rip off the Band-Aid and explore the future of healthcare,

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benefits,

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and the people driving innovation in the industry.

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This episode is brought to you by Health Next,

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the company leading the way in helping employers build enduring cultures of health

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and wellbeing,

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reducing medical cost trends,

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and increasing organizational performance.

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To learn more how they can help you, visit healthnext.com.

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Hey everybody, Vincent Catalano here and we're talking about a healthcare hot take today.

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So last week I was in Orlando, Florida at the National Kitchen and Bath Show, KBiz.

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My wife's an interior designer and consultant and so it was a great week, great show.

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But I took the opportunity to talk to people who were friends of mine and people I

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didn't necessarily know about healthcare.

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All you gotta do is

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You know, ask someone, how would you fix health care in America and let them talk?

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And so some very interesting things came up.

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And I want to highlight a few points for you today.

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You know, the first is is mental health.

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That was a big topic.

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People, you know, have stressed out about access to mental health care.

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And so nothing worse than having a mental health care issue and stressing out more

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about lack of access to providers.

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And so one of their key points was how do we make mental health care more

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accessible to everyone?

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And that's a valid point.

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I mean, in many cases, if you want to access a psychologist,

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or a psychiatrist,

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you'll find that a lot of them aren't even in network on the health plan that you

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have and paying cash is literally the only solution to seeing them.

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And so that becomes something stressful,

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but it also is something to be mindful of because the more you're willing to pay

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cash for a visit to mental health professionals,

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the better you'll be.

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I mean,

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in fact,

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a lot of employers provide their employees with an EAP,

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which gives people access to a network

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of mental health specialists.

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And a lot of people don't even know that that's there to access.

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But some of those visits are limited to three visits or six visits per instance of situations.

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So once you go through those three to six visits,

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you should ask the provider you're meeting with what it would cost to continue that

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therapy and whether the health plan you're on will cover some of it.

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So that was one key thread.

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Second key thread was just the notion of the fact that insurance companies eat up

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so much profit and they create such a complex system of pre-authorizations and lack

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of transparency and so much of all that.

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And that was top of mind for a lot of people as premiums continue to rise.

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We're seeing that people are looking at health care as a more significant financial burden.

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I mean,

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in many cases,

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if you're paying for a family and your employer isn't subsidizing it,

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it's costing you as much as your mortgage or more to be on health insurance.

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And so I think that transparency is an issue and people are kind of sick of having

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to deal with that third party that has nothing to do with their care.

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The third thing,

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which I thought was fascinating,

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is this notion of the contrast between the US and Canada.

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Two people I talked to just happened to be Canadian citizens,

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or one had grown up in Canada and now lives in the US.

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And one of them had something very interesting to say,

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and he was a CEO of a company up in Canada today.

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And he says,

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you know,

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it doesn't bother me that I,

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if I go to the ER,

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go to a doctor's office,

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that there might be a homeless person in front of me

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waiting for care.

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And if they get in front of me and they get care first before me,

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that's okay,

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you know,

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because they see healthcare as a national right and they look at it as something

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that benefits the community as a whole.

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And so that is starkly different than the way we look at healthcare here in the

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U.S.,

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which is a business.

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Everybody's got their hand in the till and it represents one sixth of our national economy.

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So it's kind of really a big deal when you think about that.

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And over the course of this year,

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I'm hoping to be visiting a few other countries,

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particularly in Europe,

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and I'm going to be interested to talk to people there about how the health care

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systems work there in contrast to the business oriented thing that's here in the

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US.

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And that leads to another notion that physicians aren't really trained in business.

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They're trained to be good doctors.

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And so they come into the industry as practitioners,

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not necessarily understanding the nuances of what it takes to run a business,

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deal with insurance companies and all the things.

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So that was the US Canada contrast is kind of an interesting start of that thought process.

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And finally,

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and in the conference last week,

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one person brought up this notion of,

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you know,

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we all have a responsibility to be well.

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the notion that we should eat right, exercise, take care of ourselves,

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is something that is i think lost on a lot of us you know i you know i don't

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necessarily buy into a lot of what old uh robert f kennedy has to say about

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vaccines and things like that but i do buy into the notion that we needed to flip

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the uh the food pyramid upside down i mean we need to not be eating processed foods

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we need to be eating whole foods and vegetables and grains and and proteins and all

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the things that

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can continue to make us well and maintain our health.

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So that was kind of an interesting point that people were making is you got to fix

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yourself first before we worry about fixing the healthcare system.

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So that was fascinating.

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This podcast reflects the personal views of the host and guests,

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not their employers or sponsors.

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See you next time.