Ben Aiken’s Post

Do me a favor and go look at Decent.com today. I'm smiling at our new website like an old friend. I’m blown away by the work my teammates did to build it, especially Rachel Kim and Sandy Dedo and the amazing folks at Crew. But that’s not why. Decent has been a labor of love, for me and Richard Luck and for so many others. Oh, the labor. Rainer Maria Rilke said “The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things”, and we've nearly been defeated by some great things. We got started in 2018, evolved through changes in federal law and COVID, then got left at the altar by a carrier partner last January and had to let go of 94% of the best team I’ve worked on in my life, just a few months after I lost my mom. Those memories will always hurt. I've made plenty of mistakes as a CEO and a leader. But I haven’t stopped learning or fighting, and I never wonder if this fight is worth my time. And, the love. We’ve changed models and customers and now we’re changing websites, but we’ve never changed our mission: affordable healthcare for all. We got calls from upset members when we went away and calls from happy members when we came back. One time a member who’d gotten two hip replacements on our plans called to thank me because he’d just climbed a mountain after wondering if he’d ever be able to do that again, and he started crying, and I started crying too. We’re the first customer on our own new plan now, and it's good. It will be available nationally later this year. My seven year old son who is sleeping next to me while I write this says he wants to work at Decent when he grows up, and he doesn’t know what that involves, but I think he knows exactly what it means. There are so many heroic people in healthcare, Direct Primary Care providers and advisors and investors and teammates and friends working to fix what’s broken and restore what’s beautiful, and we’re going to do it, and I get to be a part of that, big or small. This is what gets me up in the morning and too often keeps me up at night. This is why I wear our t-shirts and write LinkedIn broetry. This is the reason my family is proud that I work in the insurance industry. This is what I hope will be my life’s work. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, but I know how hard we’ve worked to get to today. We are here together now. And I feel grateful. So please go look at our new website and celebrate with me. And while you're at it, join the waitlist. We're on a mission to fix healthcare, not just websites. And we've got a lot more coming soon.

“I realized that the people going into family medicine and primary care were very much my people. And that there was a striking opportunity for primary care to reclaim its place in our national healthcare system." ❤️ This week for Decent's Healthcare Rebel Alliance Q&A Series, I interviewed Direct Primary Care doctor Ben Aiken at Lantern Health in Asheville, North Carolina. Ben is a close advisor to Decent and is the kind of friend I love most: he is thoughtful, sincere, and ambitious, and he cares as much as anyone I know about doing things right. Read our full conversation on our blog, link in comments.

The U.S. House of Representatives just passed H.R. 3836 the Medicaid Primary Care Improvement Act by a unanimous voice vote. In a time when bipartisanship is so rare we thank Reps. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) and Kim Schrier, MD (D-WA) for their tireless efforts to bring great humane #directprimarycare to all Americans, including people in Medicaid. #bipartisanshipworks Direct Primary Care Coalition My DPC Story Garrison Bliss Kim Schrier, MD Clint Flanagan, MD American Academy of Family Physicians Direct Primary Care Alliance Rushika Fernandopulle OneMedical Group Michelle Reinke Neblett Colin Yokanovich Ben Aiken Jeannine Rodems, MD, FAAFP Zak Holdsworth Michael Freedman Everside Health Chris Miller Ricky Haug Paul Yerkes, MD Accountable for Health Troy Burns Matthew Haden MD, MPH, MBA Fritz Busch Sarah Lloyd Stevenson, MPH Lineal Health Sidney Haitoff Julia Cooper Dave Chase, Health Rosetta-discovering archaeologist Matthew Hoff Lester Baskin

Hello from Chicago! Health Rosetta’s annual conference brings together over 600 healthcare leaders, employers, and providers to share ideas on how to improve health plans. We look forward to presenting! Pictured from Left to Right: Chad Rasmussen with Diathrive Health, Patrick Long with Hero Health Plans, Dr. Ben Aiken with Lantern Health, and Vinay Patel, PharmD with MakoRx #healthcare #healthplan #conference #event

Are you ready! Next week’s DisruptHR Asheville event is going to be awesome! And we’ve officially confirmed attendees will leave the event with an hour of SHRM credit. These fantastic speakers and generous sponsors are ready to network with you. Come join us! You can still get a few last minute tickets at https://lnkd.in/d9g-T_W5. Share with your HR friends that you’re coming! #disrupthrasheville Chip Harvey Golnosh Sharafsaleh, MD, MS, MBA, CPE, AGSF, FAAFP, Gail Nankervis, MBA, CDFA® Chad Norman Ben Aiken Dennis Hartin Jackie Grady Watson Jordan, Ed D. Kari L. Niblack, Esq. Tina Willenborg Lois Irwin Tim Randall Christine (Christy) Vago, MHP, HIA

Let's address three topics that are trending in the so-called health, wellness, and performance space: 1) Cold plunges 2) Eliminating coffee 3) Cutting out alcohol No hype or motivated reasoning. Just the facts. Buckle up. 1. Cold plunges: Let's start with the science. Everybody sites the same paper. -It has a sample size of 15. -The control group has 50 percent more body fat than the experimental group. -The difference in calories burned over 24 hours is truly minuscule. So all the proclaimed physical health benefits basically amount to a few extra calories burned in a study with 15 people and poorly matched controls. Reminds me of a few years ago with cryotherapy or before that people drinking ice water to lose weight. What about brown fat? Nobody knows! It appears to have health benefits but it's largely theoretical. Many of the best athletes in the world (with great longevity) have very LOW levels of brown fat. On the psychological side, if sitting in freezing cold water gives you a rush of energy (dopamine) and helps you build discipline, that is great! But many other things do as well. A brisk walk. Deadlifting. Playing pick-up basketball. Dancing. Gardening. Yoga. These other options are not better or worse, but they come with all the benefits of exercise (that cold plunges don't) and you can more easily do them in communities. So, cold plunges are basically like any other hobby. If you like it, great. But no magic here. 2. Eliminating coffee: If you have hypertension or are at increased risk for stroke or other cardiovascular events then eliminating coffee may be worth considering (talk to your doctor). If you lean on coffee to mask terrible sleep habits, not good. Otherwise, coffee is great! Coffee is a performance enhancer correlated with: -Increased longevity -Decreased risk of neurodegenerative diseases Plus, the ritual of making coffee is enjoyable for many, and we need more enjoyable rituals in our days! 3) Cutting out alcohol: 1 in every 8 deaths among people aged 20-64 results from alcohol. Narrow that age range to 20-49 and it's 1 in every 5 deaths. Data comes from a new study looking at 700,000 deaths in the United States between 2015 and 2019. At this point, it's pretty hard to argue that having more than one drink a day is health promoting. It actually appears to be lethal. Theoretically, benefits in stress reduction from drinking could outweigh costs. But answer isn't to drink more! It's to de-stress in other ways! At 1 drink or less per day the evidence is mixed. However, we do know that even at that small number alcohol impairs sleep quality & other health-promoting behaviors. If you want to be really dialed in and performing at your best, less alcohol is more, all the way down to zero. Alcohol is a big part of the culture. Drinking can be an enjoyable and social event. Life isn't just about optimization. If an occasional drink always leads to cravings for more then cut it out. If not, fine to enjoy.