What you need to know about the 'East Coast Kaiser,' per Hospitalogy's Blake Madden

It’s official. Today, Kaiser Permanente acquired Geisinger Health, a health system based in Pennsylvania, and folded it into the nonprofit Risant Health. What we know so far is that this is part of an effort to create a company to operate nonprofit community health systems. Kaiser also said that it plans to drop $5 billion into Risant in the next five years, and it’s shopping for other health systems to fold into its network.

The New York Times described this move as a reaction to for-profit companies, including health plans, scooping up physician practices and urgent care centers. All of this is driving up consolidation, and the overall cost of healthcare. Risant, according to Kaiser’s CEO Gregory Adams, is investing in prevention to keep patients’ on the right track so they don’t require as much expensive specialty care.

As I read the press release this morning, I had many more questions than answers about how this model will work in practice. So, I called up the OG in the space - Blake Madden, who runs the newsletter Hospitality - to ask him what he thinks. If you are in the industry and don’t read Hospitality, you should subscribe! It’s a must read for us digital health nerds.