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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

Details, Details, Details

Jonathan Gluck pays attention to details. Gluck, who serves as both senior executive and counsel for Northridge-based Heritage Provider Network, went from being a full-time litigator, who relentlessly battled opponents for change, to a corporate executive who is pushing for changes in health care. To him, the details always matter. Gluck left his 15-year stretch as a full-time attorney in 2008 to join Heritage. It is the collaborative nature of the executive role that’s most satisfying – and challenging, he says. Before joining the physician group, Gluck was a partner at several Los Angeles law firms and worked as outside counsel for Heritage for more than five years. About a quarter of his job is spent handling legal matters for the medical group network. The rest of the time, Gluck said he juggles a wide range of functions, from helping the company to pursue hospital partnerships to staying abreast of new regulations coming out of Washington, D.C. and how laws may affect the group’s business. Heritage contracts with about 2,300 primary care physicians, 30,000 specialist physicians and more than 100 hospitals. It has nine medical groups, including Northridge-based Regal Medical Group and Glendale-based Lakeside Medical Group. Question: What is it like to go from being a full-time attorney to a senior executive who has to also juggle operations? How challenging was that? Answer: I like it much more. I like being a lawyer, don’t get me wrong. But I was a litigator. Constantly fighting with people is wearing after awhile. It’s always fighting about something that’s usually broken. When you’re in a company and you’re in operations … you feel like helping to build something. It’s a different sense of satisfaction, so I really like it. Having so many people have input in so many different decision points coming together (in a corporation) to figure out what needs to be done can be challenging. Q: What do you borrow from your law experience that helps you with your executive tasks? A: To be a good litigator, you have to be rigorously analytic. You’re also trained as a lawyer to solve problems. Q: You received your bachelor’s degree from the Rabbinical College of America. How does that tie into what you do today? A: I was thinking about becoming a rabbi. (But) to be very honest, I didn’t think I had the patience for it. So I decided I would take the training I got, which was a lot of Talmudic law and Talmudic training … and use that in law school to study the American legal system. The Talmud is the ancient Jewish codification of the law. It’s just excellent training for how to think logically. Q: You identified Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable,” as your most admired person. Why does he inspire you? A: I consider myself to be somewhat of a contrarian. (Taleb’s book) has to do with the concept of randomness and understanding the effect of random events — especially large random events — on everything that happens in the world. The concept is we think we know things about many things, and a lot of the time we discount the possibility that we’re wrong, (and) that things that have happened are random. We put too much stock into our ability to control events. I’ve read lots of stuff on probability and randomness. I love behavioral economics. It explains a lot about how people act and why they do things. Q: You help oversee operations for a large organization. How has Heritage grown to where it is today? A: As the health plans had new areas where they wanted HPN to expand into, they would talk to (company founder) Dr. Merkin. They would say, ‘We’re having trouble in this area or that area. Could you please start a group in this area to help manage the population?’ That’s really, over time, how we expanded. It’s only very recently that we’ve acquired groups and expanded through acquisition. I think the reason there’s been more acquisition opportunity recently is because of the uncertainty in the marketplace created by health care reform. I think a lot of people just don’t know what the future holds and want to affiliate with a larger entity such as ours. Title: Senior Executive AGe: 45 education: Law degree from The Gould School of Law at the University of Southern California, bachelor’s degree from Rabbinical College of America Most Admired: Nassim Nicholas Taleb Career Turning Point: Leaving my firm where I was a partner to move in-house at Heritage Provider Network Personal: Married, with four children Q: What are Heritage’s next steps of development? A: We’re looking to grow because it’s what makes the most sense … when you think of the possibilities created by health care reform. I’m convinced that’s going to provide further opportunities for acquisition, further opportunities for alignment with partners, further opportunities to have doctors join us, who want to join a model like ours. Q: What knowledge can companies from other industries take from Heritage’s business model? A: We are good at what we do because we focus on the details. We pay attention to every little piece of what is needed to care for the health of our population. It’s not about grandiose planning. It’s not about ‘pie in the sky’ dreams. It’s about paying attention to details. When you do that, people know you’re good, and because of that, opportunities present themselves and you can take advantage of that. Q: What are the main challenges facing medical groups today? A: I think the country as a whole understands that they cannot keep health care spending (at) the trajectory it’s been for the last probably 20, 30, 40 years. Because of that, it’s going to require both spending less money and providing better care. That’s obviously not easy. People who are not sophisticated in the care programs that keep people healthy, and therefore ultimately don’t cost as much … are going to struggle because the amounts paid are not going to be as much as they were. Q: What are the challenges of being such a large integrated physicians group? A: Because attention to the details is what makes you successful, you need to have people who work for you pay attention to the details. The larger you grow, the more quality people you need, and sometimes it’s difficult to find enough people to allow you take advantage of all the opportunities presented. But that cuts across any business. Q: What are the advantages? A: We have the opportunity to both try new programs (and) to keep people healthy. We have the size and the scope to experiment with ways to try to better the health of a population that a smaller group might not have. Because of that, we also have the time horizon to implement those programs, and we have the ability to roll them out over large geographies. Q: With all the changes in health care today, what’s your advice for consumers seeking high-quality health care? What should they look for? A: Make sure you’re going to find a doctor who think of as your partner… who’s going to help you manage your care. (Someone) who’s not just going to call you or you don’t have to just call when you feel sick but is going to try to keep you healthy, who is going to proactively participate in your health care.

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