Upward Growth is the podcast for anyone making strategic bets on the health plan market.
Host Ryan Peterson is the principal of Upward Growth, a health plan market advisory firm. With 15 years selling into health plans, Ryan brings an operator's view of the buying side.
Each episode breaks down how plans buy, operate, and make decisions, then translates that into commercial implications for health tech vendors, investors, provider organizations, and management consultancies.
What you'll hear: breakdowns of what's moving in the health plan market, CMS regulatory shifts translated into go-to-market implications, earnings call analysis through a health plan buying lens, structural shifts changing who's buying what and why, and occasional conversations with operators, investors, and builders working on what we cover.
If you're making bets on the health plan market, this show is built for you.
Learn more about Upward Growth at: www.upwardgrowth.com
Subscribe to the newsletter at: upwardgrowth.substack.com
The MA Reset, One Year On: Three Shifts the Stabilization Story Misses
The 2026 Medicare Advantage growth headline was flat to modestly positive. Underneath it, three structural shifts have compounded on plan buying decisions in ways sell-side stabilization commentary does not capture: an SNP rotation running through C-SNPs rather than the D-SNPs earnings calls point at, four plans in federal court over the same Star Ratings methodology, and a hard January 2027 CMS deadline that will consolidate supplemental benefit spend onto a small platform-compliant set. The...
19 Jul 2026
ACCESS-Aligned: What Health Plans Will Start Asking Vendors
On July 5th, CMS launched the ACCESS Model, a 10-year voluntary Medicare payment test paying for outcomes across four chronic care tracks. Alongside it, CMS shipped a full replication kit for the private payer market, and 14 of the largest health plans in the country signed the ACCESS Aligned Payer Pledge, covering 165 million member lives across Medicare Advantage, Medicaid, and commercial coverage, committing to offer ACCESS-Aligned arrangements by January 1, 2028. The surprise: the questio...
28 Jun 2026
MedPAC's June Report: How Health Plans Are Buying Differently in 2026
MedPAC's June 2026 report to Congress dropped on June 15 and attached $22 billion in higher-than-justified Medicare Advantage payments in 2026 to coding intensity alone. The same report documented $23.7 billion in improper MA payments for fiscal year 2025 and endorsed a federal role for technology in fixing Medicare enrollment, in the same chapter that flagged the broker channel as part of the problem the technology is meant to solve. In this episode of the Upward Growth Podcast, Ryan Peterso...
20 Jun 2026
Member Memory: The New Vendor Lens on Medicare Advantage Star Ratings
On April 2, CMS published the CY 2027 Final Rule and tripled the weight of two Health Outcomes Survey measures inside the Medicare Advantage Star Ratings. By 2029, HOS and CAHPS will drive close to 40 percent of the total Star Ratings calculation. The shift pulls every health tech vendor that touches a Medicare Advantage member into the Star Ratings conversation, whether or not they have ever positioned their product as Stars-relevant. In this episode of the Upward Growth Podcast, Ryan Peters...
13 Jun 2026
Why Clover v. HHS Matters Even If You're Not in Stars
On May 27, a federal judge in Georgia threw out 20 Medicare Advantage Star Ratings measures from Clover Health's 2026 rating and ordered CMS to recalculate. The order is narrow. The reasoning is not. In this first episode of the Upward Growth Podcast, Ryan Peterson breaks down why Clover v. HHS is structurally different from every prior Star Ratings lawsuit, why your buyer at the plan got harder to close overnight, and where you actually sit in the fallout depending on where you operate...
25 May 2026
Welcome to the Upward Growth Podcast
The Upward Growth Podcast is the new audio channel from Upward Growth, a health plan market advisory firm. Host Ryan Peterson breaks down what's actually moving in the health plan market and what it means for the people selling into it, investing in it, or building for it. Think of it as the audio version of the weekly Upward Growth newsletter, plus occasional conversations with the operators, investors, and builders working on what we cover. Each episode unpacks how plans are making buying d...
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
10 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
8 ratings
Host of Upward Growth Podcast?
Claim your podcast to manage its listing and keep your show details accurate.
Pod Engine is an independent podcast discovery and analytics service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by this podcast. Artwork and show content belong to their owners. Full legal notice.
Explore this show Podcast research with Pod Engine
