Sachin H. Jain: Staying true to our Mission in Healthcare

Sachin H. Jain shared a post on LinkedIn:

“We all run the risk of becoming the thing we rebel against.

I’m sure I heard that in a movie at some point (Star Wars, maybe?).

I think about this idea a lot in the context of healthcare.

When we start out, we all start out with clarity and simplicity of purpose:

I want to help someone.

I want to make the system better.

I want to help people who can’t help themselves.

But years later, we are more focused on career, promotions, success.

Conventional things.

I think about SCAN and our founding story A LOT.

About the fact that we were founded by a group of people we call the “twelve angry seniors.”

What were they angry about?

Lots of things—but most of all the fact that the final common pathway for many Americans at the time was death in a nursing home.

They wanted to age in place.

And they wanted a network of services—the Senior Care Action Network—that would help them do that.

And help it did.

For decades.

Then, something happened.

We became part of the new normal.

We became a Medicare Advantage plan.

A darn good plan, I might say.

But, perhaps, in rebelling against the status quo – we became the best version of what many could describe as the “new normal.”

Unprecedented consistency in quality and performance.

We became focused on conventional measures of success – market share, growth, STAR ratings, etc.

All important – but not why we all came to this work in the first place.

Which got me thinking about renewing our spirit of rebellion and protest.

Because even though we’ve made things better—we can still do more.

Because even though SCAN led the industry (in the 1980s!) with its pioneering programs to address food insecurity, transportation challenges, and social isolation—we can do more.

Because even though SCAN led the industry this past year with its STARS litigation—we can do more.

And so we are in the midst of dramatically transforming our self-image as a company.

And so every SCAN employee won’t be referred to as an employee or associate or colleague.

No, that’s for traditional companies doing traditional things.

We will leave those titles for the others.

No, they will be referred to as “rebels”—rebels with a cause, in fact.

Because being the best in a broken industry isn’t anything to be truly proud of.

It just means we have more work to do.

We can’t just win the game that we are playing.

We need to change the game altogether.

That’s the mark of leadership and rebellion.

That’s what it means to work at SCAN.”

Source: Sachin H. Jain/LinkedIn

Sachin H. Jain is the President and CEO of SCAN Group and Health Plan and an Adjunct Professor of Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. He also serves as a Board Member at The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, an Academic Hospitalist (WOC) at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and a Board Member at America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP). He is also a board member of Omada Health.