How St. Charles Turned Clinical Quality into Payer Leverage: From Seven MA Payers to One

The Strategist in Brief: May 14, 2026

This week's episode covers Q1 hospital earnings, UnitedHealthcare's prior authorization rollback, the proposed CJR-X model, J-1 visa delays, and CMS's Medicaid revalidation push.

How St. Charles Turned Clinical Quality into Payer Leverage: From Seven MA Payers to One

We dig into how St. Charles Health System, a four-hospital not-for-profit in Central Oregon and the sole major provider across a 32,000-square-mile service area, went from seven Medicare Advantage payers down to one and then turned a twenty-year track record of clinical quality into a negotiating tool that cut cancer treatment authorization times from weeks to a single day. Matt Swafford, CFO, and Mark Hallett, Chief Clinical Officer, walk us through the decision to terminate contracts with six national MA payers, how they used NCCN concordance rates to negotiate instant authorization with PacificSource, and the CFO-CCO partnership model that enabled it all.

The Strategist in Brief: April 30, 2026

This week's episode covers five big ideas from the Spring CSO Forum, CVS's new pharmacy-only stores, Amazon and Walmart's competing GLP-1 programs, Baylor Scott & White's health plan exit, and who's in and out of the CMS ACCESS model.

2026 Summit Recap: Service Line Rationalization, Scenario Planning, and AI

This episode recaps three key themes from the 2026 Strategy Catalyst Summit: what it takes to move service line rationalization from theory to action, what a live scenario planning exercise revealed about strategic preparedness, and who should be owning the AI agenda. Watch our highlight reel from the summit here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6hHlfynB_I]. And for more on the content referenced in this episode, read our analysis in The Strategist here [https://hmacademy.com/insights/strategy-catalyst/leadership-and-governance/four-insights-and-highlights-from-the-2026-strategy-catalyst-summit] and check out our Stress Test Scenario Planning Guide here [https://hmacademy.com/insights/strategy-catalyst/payer-strategy/stress-test-a-scenario-planning-guide-for-policy-and-market-disruption].

The Strategist in Brief: April 16, 2026

This week's episode covers the finalized Medicare Advantage rate increase, new research on AI scribes, Anthropic's unreleased Claude Mythos model and cybersecurity implications, and MedPAC's findings on Medicare Advantage margins.