is a health care analyst and commentator, He is Principal of Health Value Direct, a specialized health benefits consulting firm, and Managing Principal of Healthcare Performance Inc., a consulting practice based in Atlantic Beach, FL. He is a former CEO of the National Business Coalition on Health, which represents 5,000 businesses and unions and some 35 million covered lives.
Brian is an active author and speaker, and has provided health care commentary to CBS Evening News, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. He has published articles on Kaiser Health News, Medscape, Healthleaders, The New England Journal of Medicine, Modern Healthcare, Business Insurance and newspapers nationally.
He is a columnist for Medscape, focused on business of medicine and primary care, as well as a regular contributor to the Health Affairs Blog and other expert health care blogs. With his wife, he maintains Elaine’s Journey, which details their struggle against Primary Peritoneal (Ovarian) Cancer.
He recently served on the American Academy of Family Physicians’ Primary Care Services Valuation Task Force, and is a reviewer for Health Affairs and The Journal of Ambulatory Care Management. He serves on the Board of the Consortium for Southeast Hypertension Control (COSEHC), dedicated to translational medicine for vascular disease. He is an Advisor to the Lundberg Institute, the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative, which advocates for medical homes, and the Center for Value Health Innovation, which helps business identify and implement approaches proven to improve quality while reducing cost.
In January 2011, with David C. Kibbe MD, he began a campaign, Replace the RUC!, that focuses on the most important driver of inappropriate health care cost. That effort has resulted in a lawsuit by six Augusta, GA primary care physicians against the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) over its longstanding inappropriate relationship with the AMA’s Relative Value Scale Update Committee (RUC).
In is spare time, Brian is an offshore sailor.
Contact him at 904.395.5530 (o), 904.343.2921 (c), bklepper@gmail.com.
I don’t know why it’s taken me this long to look you up on Facebook. I must say you look mahvelous…is there a painting in the attic that is all funky and decrepit? And where do I sign up to be a friend?
I’m probably traveling through your neck of the woods in the coming days or weeks or months – could a senior citizen type reunion be possible? My baby is about to go off to college somewhere…and will be eighteen next month??!! You know all about that phase of development, right? I need a good talking to about life after my favorite job is no longer available on a daily basis…although the pay SUX, being Jenna’s Mama has been my alltime favorite job in the universe. Soon she’ll be off somewhere having fun without me, and I’m moving to
a) anywhere but here OR
b) anywhere but where she moves to go to school
But enough about me…I was so happy to read Elaine’s recent entry about the WALK in pink tutus. Can we talk about when and where others might don their tutus and join in celebrating?
I don’t know how to twitter and stuff of that ilk…I like to chat the old timey way – on a phone or dare I say it, in person over multi cups of coffee, so you can see someone’s eyes laughing.
Hope y’all are doing well. All things considered…I love my life, and would love to learn how you and your dear ones are doing.
Your OOOOOLLLLLDDDDD friend,
Sarah Kraft