Strategic Advisor, Humana Inc
Humana CEO on digital health technology, drug costs and more
Bruce Broussard, CEO of health insurance company Humana, sits down with CNBC's Bertha Coombs to discuss the state of the industry, integrating digital health technology, making acquisitions, and more.
About Bruce Broussard
In a June 2022 interview, Broussard acknowledged a staffing problem in healthcare, stating, "We do have a staffing problem." He attributed the shortage to a "significant amount of individuals going out of the system" and rising demand, noting that many providers retired during the COVID-19 pandemic. Broussard described the shortage as "a great opportunity because it is also a barrier to entry" and said the ability to use technology to assist providers in practicing "at the top of their license" remains an opportunity. In a 2019 interview, Broussard discussed Humana's approach to digital health, describing it as an effort to integrate services for members from a "personalized" and "simple navigation" point of view. He said Humana chose Boston for its health technology talent and agile product development, where customers are brought in to help design products. On drug costs, Broussard said the government can help by creating competition and regulating prices in certain areas, but he encouraged competition to foster innovation. He also expressed support for a maximum out-of-pocket expense, noting Humana already offers that in its Medicare Advantage product.
Transcript (15 segments)
J
Joe0:10
Fukuda joins us now with a special guest. Good morning, Bertha.
B
Bertha0:15
Good morning, Joe. I'm with Bruce Broussard, the CEO of Humana, at their new studio H, taking the wraps here, giving us an exclusive look.
J
Joe0:24
Bruce, you know Humana has not been shy about making acquisitions. They acquired Kindred Homecare last year, and you're integrating more physician services. Why effectively do your own startup when it comes to digital health?
B
Bruce Broussard0:37
Yeah, it's less about startup. It's really more about how we can integrate the services that we offer our members, both from a personalized point of view and from a simple vacation point of view. But it's the integration of that that we're trying to enable. We have a lot of technology partnerships throughout the country, but it's really how we do that.
J
Joe1:10
Former acquirer Aetna is looking to start its own.
B
Bruce Broussard1:13
Yeah, well, we did a lot of research and concluded that Boston has great talent and a lot of companies here that are oriented to health technology. And as we defined it more around health technology, we concluded that we needed the ability to partner and, in addition, to recruit talent. And this town has wonderful capabilities in both.
J
Joe1:38
You are just down the street from Vertex Pharmaceuticals in the area, this new area called the Boston Seaport, where there are a lot of tech startups. And just across town is Amazon's joint venture Haven, which you announced about the same time a year ago. And yet they've kind of...
B
Bruce Broussard2:11
This digital hub helps do that more quickly. A few things: first, we do develop products in an agile fashion. So what you see, even in this office, you'll see us bring customers in, interview them, and then our product design goes and designs them, then comes back and talks to the customer. So we have this very agile orientation to get products out as quickly as possible. They're not going to be perfect, but the customers are helping us develop that. So first, it's just how we design products and go to market. The second thing is the ability to do that in a way that we have great talent. And what we've been able to amass over the last year, and being able to develop this office, there's some really good health technology talent, and that's allowed us to get product to market. And then the last thing...
J
Joe3:11
This year they're launching a Medicare plan, and here you are going into technology. Do some of these partnerships make you think you can do it better?
B
Bruce Broussard3:19
No, I think you'll see us continue to partner. It's more about finding the sweet spot between advancing our partners' business model and strategy and advancing ours. And Oscar was a great example on the commercial side. But we felt that our ability, both from a Medicare Advantage perspective and really on behalf of our members, what we're trying to get accomplished, it was much better for us to integrate it together in the backside as opposed to partnering. And we have a number of partnerships that we're still part of, so we're not doing this on our own. We're still building an ecosystem.
J
Joe4:10
Really trying to drive down costs. Just yesterday, the Speaker of the House failed the Democrats' new plan to bring down drug costs. What do you think about the government setting a cap on how much drug companies can increase their prices?
B
Bruce Broussard4:26
That's a complicated question. I don't want to get into all the details there. I do think overall we have to be oriented to lowering cost in health care. I think the ability to do that both at the counter and make it more affordable, whether it's a maximum out-of-pocket expense, which we are very pro for because we do that today in our Medicare Advantage product unlike Medicare fee-for-service, and the second thing is also to make it totally affordable. And what I mean by that is lowering the cost of care.
J
Joe5:11
In addition, in certain areas, regulate the price?
B
Bruce Broussard5:13
I think that's one of the responsibilities they should look at. But I really would encourage also to encourage competition, because I think competition creates innovation, and when you create innovation, everyone wins. I think just putting a cap on pricing is something that you can do in some areas, but create a market that has innovation here.
J
Joe5:33
Thanks so much for joining us.