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  • What Insurance Was Really Meant to Protect You From

    What Insurance Was Really Meant to Protect You From
    2026/10/08
    Dr. Jeff Woo and Mark Blocher unpack what insurance was built to cover, why price transparency matters and how vertical integration inflates cost. An MRI in a hospital can cost $1,800. The same scan, paid in cash, can cost $400. In this episode, Dr. Jeff Woo and Mark Blocher continue their conversation on healthcare and health insurance. This time they turn to what insurance was actually meant to cover, why pricing transparency matters and how vertical integration has reshaped the industry. Mark explains the thinking at the root of most people's frustration with their coverage: [00:03:16] Mark: "The one misconception that we have about health insurance is . . . that it is 100% prepaid medical . . . and if something happens to me, . . . medicine is going to fix it and somebody else is gonna pay for it." He walks through why hospital pricing is opaque and how negotiating a cash price can save patients thousands of dollars Mark and Jeff also discuss physician burnout, the shrinking time doctors have with each patient and how a direct-care, membership-based model removes the financial pressure that shapes countless decisions in traditional healthcare. [00:28:10] Mark: "We've used the analogy of the gym membership. You pay a monthly fee, and the gym doesn't care how many times you come. They’re not incentivized — they don't make more money if you come less, they don't make more money if you come more." Insurance was never meant to be healthcare. Restoring that distinction, Mark and Jeff argue, is the first step toward a system built around patients instead of payers.
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    34 分
  • What’s the Difference Between Health Insurance and Healthcare?

    What’s the Difference Between Health Insurance and Healthcare?
    2026/09/24
    Dr. Jeff Woo and Mark Blocher dig into health insurance: how it became foundational in America, its impact on quality of care and viable alternatives. Americans spend around $16,000 per capita each year on healthcare. It hasn’t always been that expensive, but insurance companies have helped keep it that way. In this episode Dr. Jeff Woo and Mark Blocher discuss the difference between healthcare and health insurance. They cover the origins of health insurance in America, why even its most “affordable” offerings can hinder patients’ access to care and viable alternatives for patients, doctors and employers. Mark points out that many patients think that because they have insurance, they have access to healthcare. He shares an example of a patient who needed an MRI. The earliest available appointment in-network was in six to eight weeks. So, she went to Christian Healthcare Centers and received her MRI, a biopsy and the results within two weeks. She learned that there was a malignancy — and gained an entire month of treatment. [21:20] Mark: “We’ve let the insurance companies’ incentives for doctors and disincentives for patients actually interfere with that doctor-patient relationship and prevent patients from seeking timely care.” Mark and Jeff highlight how quality measures make it difficult for physicians to advocate for their patients. With up to 50% of a physician’s salary coming from meeting insurance companies’ quality measures, it puts them between a rock and a hard place: [35:29] Jeff: “[A doctor] has to be able to . . . advocate for the patient, and yet he is financially incentivized to meet these quality measures that may not necessarily advocate for the patient, but instead advocate for the insurer.” Health insurance should act as a safety net, not as a gateway to care. When it’s centered on care for the person, true healing becomes possible.
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    41 分
  • Why Christian Healthcare is Different

    Why Christian Healthcare is Different
    2026/09/10
    Dr. Jeff Woo and Mark Blocher share what makes Christian healthcare distinct and how biblical values can shape whole-person care. Christian healthcare is discipleship. In this episode Dr. Jeff Woo and Mark Blocher discuss what makes Christian healthcare “Christian.” They share that it’s deeper than a label, and necessarily involves communally working together to rebuild Christ’s kingdom. Jeff reflects that in many ways Christian discipleship has prepared him to be a physician more than his medical training. Because Christ calls people to live in community, that means we must be invested in each other’s lives — especially at our most vulnerable. Jeff also emphasizes that Christian healthcare is possible only when the caregivers’ values and philosophy align. [10:08] “We care for people in a Christian manner, in a distinctively Missional Medicine manner. . . . We care for everybody who's an image-bearer [in Christ].” That’s everyone. Missional Medicine invests in all people, from their biometrics to their mind, spirit and relationships so they can come to know their infinite God-given value. Missional Medicine offers the ministry of presence, even when medicine has reached its end. It reminds us that true healing has always been — and will always be — about more than medicine.
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    18 分
  • What is Missional Medicine?

    What is Missional Medicine?
    2026/08/27
    Missional Medicine is a calling. It’s just as much a ministry as any missionary work. Dr. Jeff Woo, medical director and co-founder of Christian Healthcare Centers (CHC), and Mark Blocher, CEO and co-founder of CHC, introduce how they started CHC and the thinking behind Missional Medicine. In his background as a pastor and medical ethics consultant, Mark realized that the problems with American healthcare fundamentally were philosophical, instead of financial or political. Around the same time, Jeff was experiencing frustration with healthcare’s increasing administrative demands, which limited his availability to his patients. With their third co-founder, Brian Aenis, they decided to build something new: a Christ-centered healthcare delivery system. That system is a ministry that’s transforming into a movement. Mark explains this is happening because CHC practices Missional Medicine. It’s a calling to serve one’s neighbor through healthcare as if they were Christ himself. Christianity is at the origins of western healthcare, and Missional Medicine seeks to restore Christ to its center. [00:12:00] Mark: “Healthcare became a relationship. That’s really what Missional Medicine is about.” Jeff emphasizes that Missional Medicine offers more than preventative care. [00:12:18] Jeff: “It’s talking about life stewardship — not only about their health, but their relationships, their vocation, their gifts, God’s purpose for their life.” Missional medicine welcomes everyone, regardless of their beliefs. Healing requires relationship, and that’s been the heart of Christian healthcare for 2,000 years. Links: Christian Healthcare Centers’ website
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    16 分
  • Missional Medicine: COMING SOON!

    Missional Medicine: COMING SOON!
    2026/08/20
    The Missional Medicine podcast explores a vision for healthcare rooted in faith, compassion and the belief that every person is made in the image of God. Through conversations with clinicians, patients, ministry leaders and innovators, the show examines what it means to approach healthcare as a calling to serve. Each episode features health insights, personal stories and discussions about the challenges facing medicine today. From the doctor-patient relationship to the larger forces shaping healthcare, Missional Medicine asks how we can restore the human side of medicine. Because healthcare is more than treating illness. It’s a ministry.
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    1 分
  • Missional Medicine: Launching Aug. 27th!

    Missional Medicine: Launching Aug. 27th!
    2026/08/20
    Healthcare has become increasingly focused on billing codes, regulations, diagnoses and efficiency. In the process, medicine can lose sight of the people it exists to serve. Missional Medicine offers a different vision, one that recognizes that every patient is created in God’s image, and places relationships, stewardship, wellness and ministry at the center of care. On the show, you’ll hear from physicians rediscovering the joy of medicine, patients transformed by compassionate care and experts in healthcare, ethics, public policy, theology and wellness. They’ll wrestle with the difficult questions facing American medicine and explore how faith can meaningfully contribute to a better healthcare system. Healthcare doesn’t have to remain the way it is. Missional Medicine shares stories and ideas that offer hope for restoring the soul of healthcare.
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    2 分