Managed Care Cast

Perry Halkitis, PhD, MS, MPH, dean of the Rutgers School of Public Health, watched epidemics emerge, witnessed governments fail to respond, and seen communities mobilize when institutions would not. From the early days of the AIDS crisis to COVID-19, Ebola, and beyond, he has drawn consistent lessons about what makes public health succeed and what causes it to collapse.

For patients with cancer, diagnosis doesn't just bring a physical battle. It can trigger a trauma response that can linger long after treatment ends, quietly reshaping how people sleep, think, and connect with the world around them.

Early detection of chronic kidney disease (CKD) means little if it does not lead to timely treatment, yet a significant gap persists between when CKD is found and when evidence-based therapies are started. That disconnect is the focus of the second episode of Beyond the Silo: Integrated Care Across the CRM Continuum, a podcast series from The American Journal of Managed Care®, in which Ralph Riello, PharmD, BCPS, leads a conversation with Nihar Desai, MD, MPH, on how to shift CKD care from a reactive, late-stage model to one that is proactive, pathway-driven, and equitable.

The discussion builds on the first episode's focus on urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio underutilization, stipulating that screening has occurred and asking what must happen next. You can listen to the first episode here: https://www.ajmc.com/link/89943

On this episode of Managed Care Cast, The American Journal of Managed Care® spoke with Jonathan Wrathall, PhD, a senior advanced analytics consultant at Elevance Health. He authored 2 studies published in the May 2026 issue, both of which centered on food insecurity: “Food Insecurity Identification Modeling for Medicare Enrollees Using Administrative Data” and “Making the Most of Limited Resources: Predicting Food Insecurity.”

Throughout the conversation, Wrathall highlighted the motivation behind his studies, key food insecurity predictors, unexpected findings, and gaps in identifying needs across insurance groups. Before concluding, he rounded out the discussion by bringing the findings of both studies together to explain their implications for improving food insecurity detection in health systems.

Psychiatrist and longtime psychedelic researcher Scott Shannon, MD, CEO of the Board of Psychedelic Medicine and Therapies, and founder of Wholeness Center, discusses how a new federal push to accelerate psychedelic therapies could reshape the future of mental health care.