We were delighted to have Noel Guillama as our guest speaker. Noel is a member of Wellington Rotary and is a nationally recognized expert and lecturer on healthcare management/operations and the use of technology in healthcare. 
Since 1984, Mr. Guillama has been Chairman of Guillama, Inc., a strategic operations consulting and management company in healthcare, technology, construction and real estate.
Noel has served as past Chairman of Quantum Group, Inc. (Quantum) (Formerly NYSE Amex QGP) of Wellington, FL. Quantum is a healthcare information technology company and former CEO of Metropolitan Health Networks, Inc. (Formerly NYSE Amex MDF) one of Florida’s largest healthcare management company. He currently serves as Vice Chairman of Palm Beach State College Foundation, Inc.
Mr. Guillama is a former Trustee of Palms West Hospital in Loxahatchee, FL and has been director of the Palms West Chamber of Commerce in Palm Beach County and Director of The Palm Beach Education Commission. He is a member of the American College of Health Care Executives, the Healthcare and Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS), the Medical Group Management Association and the American College of Medical Practice Executives (ACMPE).
He attended Palm Beach State College, Palm Beach Atlantic University and is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the executive leadership programs at Florida International University and University of Georgia Terry College of Business.
Mr. Guillama was born in Havana, Cuba and has been a resident of Palm Beach County, Florida for 40 years.
Here’s a summary of notes from his talk –
  • Got into healthcare when guy from IBM wanted to create a healthcare company
  • The #1 business in the US; 17% of GDP
  • Medicare $700 billion $300billion in Medicaid – a $1  trillion total market
  • Baby boomers are going to stress the health care system.
  • Increasing to $3.7T to $6.7 trillion in the next 20 years
  • Big growth in insurance companies
  • UHC 2Q this year profits doubled from last year due to elected procedures were not done so they had more profits.  They have $230 billion in revenue.
  • On the other hand, hospitals have been inundated with Covid-19 cases
  • Government drives healthcare – More Medicare Advantage programs that are services orientated vs fee for service
  • Much better than fee for services … you’ll see dental and hearing introduced as services.
  • Technology is driving this migration to combination services
  • Smartphones migration … much more virtual Telemedicine care, e.g., watch events in your body and avoid emergency care. 70% of hospital admissions comes from the Emergency
  • Biden: expanding public option by expanding Medicare to 50-64 add to Medicare. But Medicare pays 1/3 of what private insurance pays
  • Covid is related to Black Death
  • Renaissance in health care better services and more growth
  • Real competition not likely but Baptist Health will feel pressure due to no certificate of need
  • Close to paying people to get/stay healthy vs. cost of treating illness
  • Rural hospitals at most risk.
  • Average stay was 7.5 days down to 2.5 days but now but on the rise due to Covid.
  • FEMA may build emergency hospitals around the country to deal with the next crisis.
  • Healthcare is not patient centric. Rather, it’s doctor, hospital and insurance centric
  • Note that 33% of all healthcare is hospital related
  • Where can we deal with prescription prices? Transparency will help…. Simply publish who is paying what.
  • Hidden costs with hospital illness codes … need to publish actual costs … they don’t want it to be public
  • Medicare for all … will result in loss of many thousands of hospitals going out of business. Why? Because Medicare currently only pays a small percentage of the bill. Hospitals make up for it through reimbursements from private care insurance. If the only reimbursement were Medicare, the hospitals couldn’t survive.