Are you ready to take stock and contemplate gratitude? We’re doing exactly that in the latest episode of Beyond the Stethoscope. Join us, Jason Crosby and Aaron C Higgins, as we muse over the last year – the highs, the lows, the triumphs, and the challenges. We’re sharing our gratitude for our families, the exceptional team at SHP, and you, our dedicated listeners who inspire us to keep going.
As we wind down the year, we’re excited about the enlightening episodes coming your way. We’ll be discussing the QPP Final Rule for 2024 – a topic crucial for those keeping an eye on MIPS. Finally, we’ll conclude the season with a thought-provoking conversation with Matt Usher, SHPs insurance broker. We’ll be addressing the 2024 health plan challenges from the viewpoint of both the employee and employer. This episode will be for everyone who interacts with healthcare. Don’t miss this opportunity for insight and growth on Beyond the Stethoscope. Tune in!
Guest: Jason Crosby, VP Network Integration & Strategic Planning
Jason currently serves as the Vice President of Strategic Planning & Network Integration for Strategic Healthcare Partners (SHP) of Savannah, GA, with whom he has been employed for 13 years. With SHP, he oversees the Clinically Integrated Network activity, as well as the Business Development and Strategic Planning function.
Prior to joining SHP, Jason served as Finance Director for Georgia Emergency Associates, Decision Support Manager at Memorial Health, and as a Finance Lead with Gulfstream Aerospace.
Guest: Aaron Higgins, Data Manager & IT Strategist
Aaron Higgins has worked with SHP since 2019 as the Data Manager and all around Quality Payment Program expert. In 2021, his role expanded to include IT Strategy to help SHP navigate the changing IT landscape in a post-COVID workplace. Prior to working at SHP, Aaron worked in various private practices starting in 2008, where he typically held dual roles as both the Health IT Administrator and Meaningful Use/PQRS Manager, and in 2015 he moved to the Savannah area to oversee the Quality Payment Program for a private practice. Every year, since coming to SHP, Aaron has provided a webinar series updating QPP eligible practices on the proposed & final rule changes coming to QPP (recordings of which can be found on the SHP website).
When not reading the annual Final Rule or answering questions about QPP, Aaron can be found serving on the board of Family Promise of the Coastal Empire, church committees, and on the Pooler city council. Aaron lives in Pooler, GA with his wife and golden retriever.
Transcript
Aaron Higgins:
Well, welcome to a very special episode of Beyond the Stethoscope, vital Conversations with SHB. Are you doing, jason?
Jason Crosby:
Doing just fine, Aaron. How are you?
Aaron Higgins:
I’m doing okay. So this week is, of course, thanksgiving, so we decided we were going to change things up a little bit, keep this episode a little bit short, because it’s a short work week and we’re going to talk about what we are thankful for. So, jason, I know kind of springing this on you, but what are you most thankful for this year?
Jason Crosby:
Gosh. Well, it’s been another challenging year, but exciting year. I’m thankful to make it through the year. So, as folks are listening to this the day before Thanksgiving, I want to give thanks. I’m very thankful At this time my daughter will be home. So having a daughter off at school is pretty challenging, but glad to have her home, Very proud and thankful for SHP. We work for a very positive and great employer. Very thankful for it. And those that don’t know, we are in Georgia, so I’m thankful for the best team in college football. How about you, Aaron?
Aaron Higgins:
Okay, well, I’m thankful for a lot of things this year. As some of our regular listeners may know, this spring I had a fun run-in with some blood clotting issues and I found myself in the hospital for about a week and you being a great co-host that you are, you stepped in and you ran a couple of episodes all by yourself. So I’m thankful and grateful for my health and for working for such a great employer. I know, I know SHB pays the bills, but they have been great through all of this. It’s been a stressful year too, just outside of the health issues. I ran for local office and that was a challenge, but I won, so I’m grateful for that. I’m thankful that our employer has been so supportive of us and our endeavors outside of work not just our family endeavors, but some of our passions too. So I also want to say I’m thankful for the listeners. Without them, we would have thrown in the towel a long time ago and said, oh, I guess nobody wants to listen to us. So we’re grateful to all of you all for listening to our little show.
Jason Crosby:
It’s been fun and I’d like to reiterate that as we talk with and interview folks, we brought this forward to hopefully introduce providers to other providers, to reach out to one another and kind of build and increase their peer network, other vendors which we’ve had that happen where providers here are vendors we’ve had and we’ve interviewed and they’ve collaborated on certain initiatives and so we’ve learned a lot of things. We’ve met some new people. So we’re thankful for all you guys that have not only listened but also joined as part of the interview panel.
Aaron Higgins:
Well, I would encourage our listeners to stop and think and, of course, if you’re driving, don’t stop physically. Just think about the things that you’re grateful for this year, what are some of your, our losses, and how can you take that forward into next year to be a more thankful and grateful person. Well, jason, again, we want to keep this a little bit short, but I we’re well past the halfway point of this season. Can you land the plane and tell us what’s going to happen over the next few episodes?
Jason Crosby:
Yeah, so we’ve got a few more weeks. About three more weeks after. You’ll have an episode of just Aaron and I if you can kind of bear through it and then we’ve got Aaron himself will be doing a review of the QPP final role for 24. So all you concerned about MIPS that’ll be a very educational interview. And then the following week we’ll close out the season with Matt Usher. Matt is SHPs insurance broker and he’s very helpful, but he’s going to do a episode on 2024 health plan challenges, both from the employee consumer side, but also as employers, trends and challenges in the market.
Aaron Higgins:
And so we’ll close out with Matt Usher the second week of December, and that episode with Matt is really going to be tilted not towards just health care providers but pretty much anybody in the United States that receives health care through mostly private payer. So really, this is this is a for everyone type episode. So if if you receive health care, odds are you’ll be in the listening audience for this one. So with that, jason, let’s close it out. You have a very happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving everybody.
Jason Crosby:
You’ve been listening to Beyond the Stethoscope, Vital Conversations with SHP. This has been our production of strategic health care partners.
Aaron Higgins:
Your hosts are Jason Crosby and me, Aaron C Higgins. This episode is produced and edited by Nyla Wiebe. Our social media content producer is Jeremy Miller.
Jason Crosby:
Our Executive Producers are Mike Scribner and John Crew.
Aaron Higgins:
For more information about SHP, the services we offer, including the back library of episodes, episode transcripts, links to resources that we discussed, and much more, please visit our website at shpllccom. Thank you for listening.