Could the way your doctor is paid influence the care you receive? And could someone else's health insurance affect your healthcare, too?

When we think about healthcare, we often focus on our own insurance coverage, including what services are covered, which doctors we can see, and how much we’ll pay. But behind the scenes, the way we pay for healthcare can also shape how care is delivered, from the tests doctors order to the decisions they make with their patients.

In this episode of Make Science Make Sense, we sit down with Dr. Ken Cohen, Chief Medical Officer of Optum Health, to explore the growing shift from traditional fee-for-service healthcare to value-based care, a model designed to reward quality and patient outcomes rather than the volume of services provided.

Dr. Cohen shares how his early experiences as a physician shaped his approach to reducing unnecessary and sometimes harmful medical care. We discuss what it means to deliver patient-centered care, including the importance of balancing evidence-based medicine, quality of care, and responsiveness to patients' individual needs and preferences.

We also break down the differences between Traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage and explore Dr. Cohen's research examining whether physicians' participation in value-based payment models may also benefit their Traditional Medicare patients.

From the tests your doctor orders to the conversations you have about your treatment, this episode explores how healthcare payment models may influence the care you receive and what that means for patients, physicians, and the future of healthcare.

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In this episode, we explore the science of baseball pitching with biomechanics researcher Dr. Donna Moxley Scarborough, examining how athletes adapt their movements to optimize performance and potentially reduce injury risk. From professional baseball to everyday activities, discover what the science of human movement can teach us about how our bodies work.

Dr. Donna Moxley Scarborough recognized early on that she didn't fit the typical physical mold of a star softball player. But her father, an avid Boston Red Sox fan, encouraged her to study professional athletes who shared her smaller stature. She became fascinated by how athletes with different body types adapted their movements to excel in their sports, sparking a lifelong interest in the science of human movement.

Now a biomechanics researcher and former lead biomechanist for the Boston Red Sox, Dr. Scarborough joins Make Science Make Sense to challenge the idea that there's one "perfect" pitching motion. In her study, Kinematic Sequence Classification and the Relationship to Pitching Limb Torques, she investigates the kinematic sequence—the coordinated series of movements involved in throwing a baseball—and how variations in these patterns relate to the physical stresses placed on pitchers' arms.

Drawing on her research with elite baseball players, Dr. Scarborough explores how athletes adapt their movements to meet the physical demands of their sport, challenging the assumption that there is a single optimal way to throw a baseball. Could differences in movement patterns actually be an advantage rather than a flaw? And what might this mean for improving athletic performance and reducing injury risk?

The implications extend far beyond baseball. From walking and climbing stairs to lifting everyday objects, understanding how our bodies adapt and move could help inform approaches to improving movement and reducing injury risk for athletes and nonathletes alike.

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About 1 in 9 Americans older than 65 have Alzheimer's Disease, the most common form of dementia. Population health experts predict that the number of people diagnosed with dementia will nearly double by 2050. Medical researchers are urgently seeking solutions and potential therapies to stop the onset of dementia, but its root causes are still not well understood. For decades, researchers have investigated the buildup of two proteins, tau and amyloid-beta, detected in post-mortem brains of people with Alzheimer's disease. Therapies targeting the dysfunction in these proteins have shown minimal benefits to patients suffering cognitive decline.

So Jackson Laboratory scientist Dr. Alaina Reagan started looking elsewhere for answers - specifically in the system she knew best. Alaina studies the cerebrovascular system and how a person's genetics may dictate how blood circulates and flows to the brain. In this episode, she discusses a crucial lab study that established a link between the MTHFR gene variant in 40% of the world's population and blood vessel damage. In a refreshing take on genetic science, Alaina explains how the variant influences the mechanics of blood flow but isn't the singular cause of dementia. She explains how keeping our minds active could help offset the deficiency associated with this one-letter misprint in our genetic code.

For information about the Howell Lab and Jackson Laboratories, visit: https://www.jax.org/research-and-faculty/research-labs/the-howell-lab

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