Ongoing COVID-19 and related patient care concerns are competing with unexpected financial and economic, and workforce, challenges for room on the boardroom agenda. Hospital and health system boards must find time to accommodate these and other emerging oversight issues within the context of an already-crowded governance docket.

Diligent director preparation and fulsome management support, along with disciplined leadership from the board chair and CEO, will well position the board to satisfy these expanded oversight duties. Michael Peregrine welcomes back Jamie Orlikoff, president of Orlikoff & Associates, Inc., and Sandy DiVarco, McDermott partner, leader of McDermott health advisory on patient care and safety and accreditation issues, author of the recent client memo series on vaccination mandates and workplace safety developments, for an update on where we stand two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, including:

• Implications and expectations from hospital boards regarding current COVID-19 rates.
• The regulatory authorities’ response to competing pandemic-related pressures.
• Board guidance for addressing financial concerns in light of a stealth surge.
• The governance challenges associated with growing supply chain issues.
• Universal truths following the pandemic that are valuable to healthcare boards.
• Defining purpose and the role of hospitals in leading healthcare issues.

In the fourth episode of Season 2: Driving the Deal, Brian Fortune, Senior Managing Director at Farragut Square Group and guest co-host Jackie Williams, Head of Research at Farragut Square Group, are joined by Holly Stokes, Senior Associate at Farragut Square Group, live at McDermott’s annual Physician Practice Management & ASC Symposium in Nashville. Brian, Jackie and Holly discuss:

• The stability and continued interest in gastroenterology and ophthalmology
• Specialties emerging as the next frontier for PPMs
• Challenges and special considerations for cardiology and ambulatory infusion
• The current macro pressures for PPMs including budget neutrality, clinical labor, sequester and pay-go

Part two of this series addresses key issues facing the board’s compensation committee when evaluating executive compensation, data analysis, recruitment and retention, and executive search matters.

This episode features industry leaders, Tim Cotter and Ralph DeJong, as they offer extraordinary insight on emerging priorities and trends impacting the compensation committees, including:

• The evolution of annual and long-term incentive plans.
• The retention effect of executive pay and benefit programs.
• The continued relevance of for-profit compatibility data.
• Handling executive and director co-investment arrangements.
• Approaching CEO compensation earned from outside board service.

In the third episode of Season 2 Driving the Deal, Krist Werling, McDermott Partner and Co-Head of Private Equity, and Brian Fortune, Senior Managing Director at Farragut Square Group, are joined by Mark Francis, Head of Healthcare and Managing Director at Houlihan Lokey, live at McDermott’s annual Health Private Equity event in Miami. They discuss the following topics:

• Healthcare sectors poised to see an increase in deal volume and activity
• Convergence of sectors creating new services in the next five years
• Future of orthopedic deals and changing sector activity
• “Transformative” deals and entering the innovative side of healthcare
• Value-based care and its impact on the market

The board’s executive compensation committee has traditionally been one of the most prominent of all board functions, with its focus on such interconnected responsibilities as oversight of the executive compensation process, compensation data analysis, talent recruitment and executive search.

This episode is the first in a two-part discussion filled with valuable insight and the latest developments affecting compensation committees from two recognized health industry compensation and benefits experts, Tim Cotter and Ralph DeJong. Tim and Ralph will discuss such important topics as:

• The current state of salary, increase budgets, incentive award levels and emerging compensation practices.
• Developing retention and predictable transition strategies.
• Insights into application and interpretation of the IRS “rebuttable presumption” standards.
• Needed changes to highly prescriptive compensation philosophies.
• Tactics for encouraging executive retention beyond traditional cash incentives.

In this second episode of Season 2 Driving the Deal, Krist Werling, McDermott Partner and Co-Head of Private Equity, and Brian Fortune, Senior Managing Director at Farragut Square Group, are joined by Frank Martin, Head of Commercial Care at Farragut Square Group and a leader in commercial managed care. The topics discussed include:

• The dominant trends in the commercial care market heading into 2022
• The state of beneficiary enrollment in Medicare Advantage
• Managed care payor interaction in the Behavioral Health space and Medicaid
• Proactive revisions to change of control specifications in deal contracts

Emily Jane Cook joins 340B Health for their podcast, “Episode Forty-Four: 340B-Related Inquiries and Self-Disclosures .”

Listen to the podcast and learn more here.

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There are dynamics at the local, state and federal level that could lead to the Biden administration to wind down the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE). At the same time, there may be reasons to continue the PHE, especially given that this virus has surprised us multiple times to date. Debbie Curtis, Brian Stimson and Rodney Whitlock gather for a discussion on the layers of legal, policy, and political issues that surround statutory and regulatory flexibilities on health services, treatments, vaccination and testing associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Listen to “Governance and the PHE” on Spreaker.

In this episode of Driving the Deal, Krist Werling, McDermott Partner and Co-Head of Private Equity, and Brian Fortune, Senior Managing Director at Farragut Square Group, are joined by Holly Stokes, Senior Analyst at Farragut Square Group and veteran of numerous healthcare deals across the provider continuum. The topics they discuss include:

• The state of the deal market in 2022
• Deal questions surrounding PPMs
• Overview changes impacting the post-acute and home health sectors
• Changing activity in the behavioral sectors with a focus on SUDS
• Increased deal activity in the digital health space