Moving to Value Unscripted · 2026-04-28 · 34 min
ER visits account for roughly six percent of health plan spend, with costs rising faster than almost any other hospital service. Why is ER spending is spiraling out of control? And what should we do about it? Al Lewis, founder of The Validation Institute and the gamified health literacy platform Quizzify, has built a career exposing the financial sleights-of-hand many healthcare programs use to drain employer budgets. Lewis joins us to break down how hospitals have transformed federal mandates like the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) into high-margin profit centers through aggressive pricing and "up-coding" tactics. Lewis also shares strategies for individuals and employers to challenge the lack of transparency that often characterizes emergency department charges. Find the transcript of this episode at movingtovalue.org/transcript/lewis ________
Treating the 'Madness' of Healthcare's Status Quo (feat. William Bestermann)85 / 100
Scaling Up Self-Funded Employer-Led Healthcare (feat. Ashley Bacot)
How to Build Community Owned Health Plans (feat. Bryce Heinbaugh)
Winning the Benefits Market Attention Economy (feat. Chris Fisher)
How to Curb Profiteering and Reclaim True Value (feat. Wendell Potter)