Inside a New Model Changing American Healthcare | Risant CEO Jaewon Ryu

Over half of Americans now live with at least one chronic condition, yet our healthcare system still revolves around episodic, reactionary care instead of continuous, coordinated support.

We talk with Dr. Jaewon Ryu—former CEO of Geisinger and now CEO of Risant Health—about how integrated delivery systems are reshaping the way care is paid for and delivered. With decades of experience spanning medicine, law, government, and leadership at some of the most respected healthcare institutions, Dr. Ryu offers a rare inside look at what it takes to scale value-based care in a fragmented system.

We cover:
🏥 What an integrated delivery system actually looks like—from both the patient and provider perspective
📉 Why two patients with the same condition often face very different outcomes based on their insurance
💡 How value-based care can ease workforce shortages and improve access without cutting corners
📈 What Risant Health is doing to help more systems scale value-based care without sacrificing local autonomy
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About our guests:
Dr. Jaewon Ryu, MD, JD, is the CEO of Risant Health, a nonprofit created by Kaiser Permanente to expand and scale value-based care across diverse, multi-payer, multi-provider health systems. Previously, he served as President and CEO of Geisinger, Risant Health’s inaugural member. With a mission to improve community health outcomes and healthcare affordability, Risant Health aims to bring the benefits of coordinated, value-based care to a broader national landscape.

Dr. Ryu brings deep cross-sector experience, having held leadership roles at Humana, University of Illinois Hospital, Kaiser Permanente, and in federal government at CMS and the Department of Veterans Affairs. He began his career as a practicing corporate healthcare attorney. From 2018 to 2024, he served two terms on MedPAC, advising Congress on Medicare policy, and currently sits on the boards of NCQA, The Commonwealth Fund, and the KP Medical Foundation. Dr. Ryu earned his B.A. from Yale, and both his M.D. and J.D. from the University of Chicago, completing his emergency medicine residency at Harbor-UCLA.
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