Travels from Virginia, USA
Susan Dentzer's speaking fee falls within range: $20,000 to $25,000
Susan Dentzer is the President and Chief Executive Officer of NEHI, the Network for Excellence in Health Innovation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization composed of more than 100 stakeholder organizations from across all key sectors of health and health care. NEHI’s mission is to advance innovations that improve health, enhance the quality of healthcare, and achieve greater value for the money spent. With offices in Washington, DC, and Boston, Massachusetts, NEHI conducts independent, objective research and thought leadership to accelerate these innovations and bring about changes in health care and public policy.
Dentzer is one of the nation’s most respected health and health policy thought leaders and a frequent speaker and commentator on television and radio, including PBS and NPR. She previously served as senior policy adviser to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the nation’s largest philanthropy focused on health and healthcare in the United States, and as the editor-in-chief of the policy journal Health Affairs. From 1998 to 2008, she was the on-air Health Correspondent for the PBS NewsHour. Dentzer wrote and hosted the 2015 PBS documentary, Reinventing American Healthcare, focusing on the innovations pioneered by the Geisinger Health System and spread to health systems across the nation.
Dentzer is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) and also serves on the Academy’s Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice. She is also an elected member of the Council on Foreign Relations; a fellow of the National Academy of Social Insurance; and a fellow of the Hastings Center, a nonpartisan bioethics research institute. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the International Rescue Committee, a leading global humanitarian organization; a member of the board of directors of Research!America, which advocates on behalf of biomedical and health-related research; and is a member of the board of directors of the Public Health Institute, a nonprofit organization addressing public health issues and solutions nationwide. From 2011 to 2017 she was a public member of the Board of Directors of the American Board of Medical Specialties, which assists 24 medical specialty boards in the ongoing evaluation and certification of physicians. She also is a member of the RAND Health Board of Advisors.
Dentzer graduated from Dartmouth, is a trustee emeritum of the college, and chaired the Dartmouth Board of Trustees from 2001 to 2004. She has served as a member of the Board of Overseers of Dartmouth Medical School for more than two decades. Dentzer holds an honorary master’s degree from Dartmouth and an honorary doctorate in humane letters from Muskingum University. She and her husband have three grown children.
Susan Dentzer captures the current mood in America’s healthcare policy perfectly as she prepares to break down the major transformations occurring due to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or in her words “the crosswinds of change.” “You can imagine sort of standing in the middle of the runway out at Hartsfield [Airport] and having winds blowing in different directions at you not to mention planes flying and God knows someday drones flying all around as well. That’s kind of the chaotic environment we’re all living in.”
Candid but graceful, Susan Dentzer uses her insider knowledge to deliver clear and trustworthy insights on healthcare, healthcare policy, and their ties to the bigger picture of economics and politics. Pointing out both problems and solutions, she dedicates time and care to answering her audiences’ questions, humbly noting that: “I learn just as much from the people in the audience when I speak as I’m sure any of you learn from me.”
Health Equity Opportunities and Challenges for Health System Leaders
A focus on equity has risen to the fore in many U.S. health care systems in reaction to the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and their repercussions, as well as the many racial and ethnic disparities highlighted anew by the COVID-19 pandemic. Both senior management and boards of directors of health care systems across the country have undertaken new efforts, or redoubled existing ones, to address equity: first in the context of provision of care and the fundamental operations of health systems, and second, in addressing the broad upstream drivers of social and economic inequity that are largely extrinsic to health care. Actions are being taken by health systems in five main categories: speaking out publicly against inequity; taking larger steps internally to address diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), combat racism, and advance empowerment; widening their traditional equity lens to encompass widespread discrimination against multiple population groups; ramping up efforts to address the safety and quality of care and reducing undesirable variation as a means to reducing inequity and disparities; and using their resources to address upstream health drivers, including in priority areas of the social and economic determinants of health. Dentzer will describe how a growing number of U.S. health systems now recognize and accept that they must play a dominant role in a process of social and economic transformation to eliminate racism and other forms of discrimination, and place the nation on the road to better health.
Assessing Medicare For All and Related Reforms
With the 2022 midterm elections already around the corner, Democratic candidates are proposing a range of health reforms aimed at providing universal health insurance coverage. Some would build on and extend the reforms enacted in the American Rescue Plan in 2021 in the Affordable Care Act; others would go further to create Medicare for All, or a some other single-payer system that would abolish private health insurance. There are also a variety of competing reforms in between. In her presentation, Dentzer can describe the origins of “Medicare for All” in longstanding calls for national health insurance; delineate the specific “Medicare for All” and related proposals; discuss the implications for hospitals, health systems, insurers, and individuals; and weigh the political prospects of all of these reforms. She can also provide an update on Republican initiatives in support of expanding coverage that could continue to affect political and health reform landscapes.
Health Care Without Walls: A Roadmap for Reinventing U.S. Health Care
The presentation is based on the book of same name published on Amazon.com. Dentzer was the editor and lead author of the book, which among other features, prefigured the explosion of virtual health care during the pandemic.
Health Care Without Walls: Implications for Primary Care
“Health Care Without Walls: Implications for Primary Care” was the subject of a recent webinar that Susan led for the Patient Centered Primary Care Collaborative. View and/or listen to recording here at: https://www.pcpcc.org/webinar/health-care-without-walls-implications-primary-care
Champions of Health Equity
How key health system leaders are responding to demands for greater equity within their organizations and across their communities.
Health Care Without Walls: Implications for Cancer Care
Dentzer has a version of the Health Care Without Walls presentation specifically geared to the oncology community and the needs of cancer patients. She draws on her recent experience in helping to create a Cancer Hospital Home program at Yale-New Haven Health system.
“Ms. Dentzer′s speech went very fine and the audience was very positive. From the first feedback, everybody found the speech extremely interesting. Some people also asked us how to invite Ms. Dentzer for some of their own conference!” Quebec International
“[Susan was] a great fit for PCMA! It′s rare that an organization comes across a speaker that is both skilled in moderating a program and an expert in healthcare. We received rave reviews on her performance.” Pharmaceutical Care Management Assn.
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Imagine a health care system that anticipated individuals’ needs, worked to keep them healthy, and delivered as much care as possible to them in their homes, workplaces, and communities. Health Care Without Walls: A Roadmap for Reinventing U.S. Health Care embraces this vision of a more “distributed” health care system extending outside of traditional institutional settings – and that would be more convenient, accessible, and arguably less costly than what the United States has now. This vision is increasingly achievable, with the help of a revamped health care work force equipped with powerful technologies, starting with telehealth and remote monitoring, and ultimately embracing a range of new intelligent devices and systems.
Many of the neediest patients would benefit, as described in a series of scenarios embedded in the book. But multiple obstacles will need to be overcome first. Health Care Without Walls recommends specific changes in how health systems are paid and regulated, as well as in the work force and the way technologies are developed, to achieve this radical new vision. Health Care Without Walls resulted from the work of NEHI, the Network for Excellence in Health Innovation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization composed of members from across the health care system. It draws on the collective insights of more than 200 individuals who brainstormed for more than a year over how to bring this revamped vision of health care about.
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