If you are the founder of a fledgling business, there are many things that are under your control, but also some that are not.
For instance, entrepreneurs working to develop tools to help hospitals get reimbursed for providing care have likely monitored political news more closely since November. One of the reasons is that following Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election, he nominated Tom Price to be Health and Human Services secretary.
Price, whom the U.S. Senate confirmed earlier this month, had previously spoken out against mandatory payment models, including those for “bundled payments” that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently approved. With bundled payments, Medicare and other payers establish target prices for procedures such as knee and hip replacements. In theory, this creates an incentive for healthcare providers to keep costs down.
“A lot of these bundled payment companies that were pitching us—we were very interested in them” before the election, says Shobhan Thakkar, a partner at the Madison, WI-based VC firm HealthX Ventures. “Now, we’re holding off on them. A lot of hospitals are saying, ‘We have to wait … for Trump’s policies to start falling [into place].’” Read the full story here.
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