How Oscar Health + Hy-Vee Are Building a New Local, Tech-Enabled Health Plan
Release Date: 11/25/2025
Sidecar Health CEO Patrick Quigley: Fixing Health Insurance by Rewiring the Incentives
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What happens when a health plan stops trying to optimize a legacy system and instead rebuilds the model itself? In this episode of Bright Spots in Healthcare, Eric Glazer sits down with Patrick Quigley, CEO and co-founder of Sidecar Health, for a candid conversation about redesigning health insurance around transparency, incentives, and consumer agency. Rather than focusing on incremental reform, this discussion explores what changes when members can see prices before they receive care, when benefits are structured around clear dollar amounts instead of opaque contracts, and when savings can...
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How Highmark, Independent Health, Johns Hopkins Health Plan and MedOrion Are Rebuilding Member Engagement in Medicare Advantage
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In this Bright Spots in Healthcare episode, Medicare Advantage leaders confront a hard truth: high activity does not guarantee high impact. As Stars cut points rise and margins tighten, traditional segmentation and broad outreach strategies are no longer sufficient. This discussion explores how leading plans are shifting from static stratification to dynamic signal monitoring, identifying which members are realistically movable, and embedding behavioral intelligence directly into operational workflows. The focus is not on doing more. It is on doing what measurably drives lift. Our guests...
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From Experience to ROI: How Mount Sinai Is Rethinking Diagnostics, AI, and the Inpatient Care Journey
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This episode features a highlighted segment from the ROI Centered Care Virtual Summit, produced by Bright Spots Ventures in partnership with TytoCare and the American Telemedicine Association. In this conversation, Eric Glazer sits down with Fernando Carnavali, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Chief of General Internal Medicine at Mount Sinai Health System, to explore how large academic health systems can translate patient experience, diagnostics, and technology innovation into measurable ROI. Rather than focusing on new tools for their own...
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How Sutter Health Is Rebuilding the Physician Pipeline
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What happens when a health system stops trying to recruit its way out of a workforce challenge, and instead redesigns the pipeline itself? In this episode of Bright Spots in Healthcare, Eric Glazer sits down with Dr. Lindsay Mazotti, Chief Medical Officer of Medical Science and Education at Sutter Health, for a candid, system-level conversation about rethinking how physicians are trained, supported, and developed for the future of care. Rather than focusing on workforce shortages as a policy or awareness problem, this conversation explores what happens after the reality is already clear—when...
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Inside ViVE 2026 with Rich Scarfo (HLTH/ViVE) & Russ Branzell (CHIME) – Part 2: Turning Conversations Into Outcomes
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In Part Two of this special ViVE series, the conversation moves from why ViVE exists to how leaders and solution partners actually extract value from it. Eric Glazer continues the discussion with Rich Scarfo, President of HLTH/ViVE, and Russ Branzell, President & CEO of CHIME, focusing on how different audiences experience ViVE and what separates attendees who walk away with clarity and momentum from those who don’t. Rich and Russ share practical perspectives on how senior healthcare leaders should navigate ViVE, how to balance content sessions with curated meetings, and what intentional...
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Inside ViVE 2026 with Rich Scarfo (HLTH/ViVE) and Russ Branzell (CHIME) - Part 1
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ViVE was created to break the mold of healthcare conferences — fewer distractions, more meaningful conversations, and content leaders can act on. In this first episode of a special two-part series, Eric Glazer sits down with Rich Scarfo, President of HLTH/ViVE, and Russ Branzell, President & CEO of CHIME, to unpack the origin of ViVE, the CHIME + HLTH partnership, and what senior leaders can expect in 2026. Together, they explore why executives needed a new kind of platform, what problems they’re trying to solve when they come to ViVE, and how topics like cybersecurity, cost...
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Scott Becker | Motion vs. Momentum & How Healthcare Founders Build Companies That Actually Scale
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What actually determines whether a healthcare business compounds, or quietly stalls? In this episode of Bright Spots in Healthcare, Eric Glazer sits down with Scott Becker, Founder and Publisher of Becker’s Healthcare and host of the Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast, for a candid, experience-driven conversation about building businesses that scale with confidence. Scott has spent decades building, advising, and investing in companies across healthcare, media, law, and private equity. Rather than walking through a framework or checklist, this conversation focuses on the real...
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From Empty Spaces to Care Hubs: OSU Medicine’s Virtual Access Playbook
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What if your next “new clinic” isn’t a new build at all? This episode features the opening presentation from the recently held ROI Centered Care Summit—a half-day virtual summit produced by Bright Spots Ventures in partnership with TytoCare and the American Telemedicine Association (ATA). Jared Droze, Director of Virtual Care at Oklahoma State University (OSU) Medicine, and Bradley Anderson, DO, Medical Director of Virtual Care at OSU Medicine unpack a practical, scalable access strategy: repurposing vacant facilities and community spaces into hybrid care hubs, bringing “right care,...
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From Mint to Medicine: How Aaron Patzer Is Fixing Patient Communication
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What happens when the founder of Mint.com takes on one of healthcare’s most broken experiences—patient communication? In this episode of Bright Spots in Healthcare, Eric Glazer sits down with Aaron Patzer, Founder and CEO of Vital, to explore how simplicity, clarity, and human-centered design can drive real impact in healthcare. Drawing from his journey building Mint, Aaron shares why most healthcare technology misses the mark, how better communication improves outcomes and ROI, and what leaders must do to design experiences people actually use. The conversation goes deep on: Why...
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Precision Health, AI & Engagement: Dr. Carolyn Jasik on Verily’s Vision for Consumer-Centered Care
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Recorded live at HLTH, this episode of Bright Spots in Healthcare features Dr. Carolyn Jasik, Associate Chief Clinical Officer at Verily, an Alphabet company focused on precision health innovation at scale. Carolyn shares how Verily has evolved through multiple “moonshot” phases, from devices and research to its current focus on precision health, combining AI, data science, and clinical expertise to deliver the right intervention to the right person at the right time. Drawing from her background as a pediatrician, behavioral scientist, and former digital health executive, Carolyn explains...
info_outlineGuests:
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Louis DeStefano, Chief Growth Officer, Oscar Health
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Jon Van Der Veer, DO, Founder & CEO, Hy-Vee Health
In this special HLTH interview, Bright Spots in Healthcare host Eric Glazer speaks with two leaders shaping one of the most innovative payer–provider–retail collaborations in the country:
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Louis DeStefano, Chief Growth Officer, Oscar Health
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Jon Van Der Veer, DO, Founder & CEO, Hy-Vee Health
Together, Oscar Health and Hy-Vee Health are building a new kind of health plan, one that blends local access, convenient care, primary care-first design, and tech-enabled member experience. Think of it as a hybrid model: part direct primary care, part advanced digital platform, part community-rooted retail ecosystem.
This conversation dives into how the two organizations are integrating brick-and-mortar clinics, urgent care, pharmacy, SDOH-friendly retail access, and Oscar’s tech stack, including “Oswell,” Oscar’s AI-powered clinical support tool, to deliver a personalized and coordinated experience.
Topics We Cover:
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Why healthcare must be local, convenient, and relationship-driven
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How the partnership blends a supermarket chain, primary care clinics, and a tech-enabled health plan into one member experience
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How ICHRA is opening new doors for employer-driven personalization
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The role of AI and tools like Oswell in interpreting labs, improving communication, and augmenting care
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What a modern, scalable direct primary care model could look like
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The 10-year vision for this collaboration and where it expands next
This episode offers a first look into a payer–retail–provider model that could reshape consumer expectations, and redefine how employer-sponsored and individual coverage works in the coming decade.
References and Mentions:
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Learn more about the partnership between Oscar Health and Hy-Vee Health - https://www.hioscar.com/hy-vee-health
- Meet Oswell, Oscar Health's new health AI agent - https://www.hioscar.com/oswell
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Dr. Garrison Bliss, widely recognized as the “Godfather of Direct Primary Care” - https://www.linkedin.com/in/garrisonblissmd/
Bios:
Louis DeStefano: https://hlth.com/events/usa/speakers/2025/louis-destefano
Dr. Jon Van Der Veer: https://hlth.com/events/usa/speakers/2025/jon-van-der-veer
Partner with Bright Spots Ventures: If you are interested in speaking with the Bright Spots Ventures team to brainstorm how we can help you grow your business via content and relationships, email hkrish@brightspotsventures.com
About Bright Spots Ventures:
Bright Spots Ventures is a healthcare strategy and engagement company that creates content, communities, and connections to accelerate innovation. We help healthcare leaders discover what's working, and how to scale it. By bringing together health plan, hospital, and solution leaders, we facilitate the exchange of ideas that lead to measurable impact. Through our podcast, executive councils, private events, and go-to-market strategy work, we surface and amplify the "bright spots" in healthcare—proven innovations others can learn from and replicate. At our core, we exist to create trusted relationships that make real progress possible. Visit our website at www.brightspotsinhealthcare.com.
Visit our website: www.brightspotsinhealthcare.com.
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