When Modern Healthcare somewhat ‘matter of factually’ and rather tersely reported the sudden [unexpected?] change in C-suite leadership at the DaVita acquired foray into physician global medical risk management (i.e., Healthcare Partners) of Craig Samitt, MD, I wondered what back-story this announcement might portend? 
DaVita the market leader in End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) care and its articulate CEO Kent Thiry has been publically outspoken about having ‘overpaid’ for Healthcare Partners and rather aggressively warranting analysts on conference calls of no more hiccups in execution, i.e., those that were responsible are no longer with us (paraphrased).
This article appeared on July 18th, 2014. Twelve days later Modern Healthcare then reported ‘DaVita again lowers earnings projections for HealthCare Partners despite Q2 improvement‘, listen here.
Samitt has been a long term and visible player in risk savvy medical group culture as a thought leader and modeller of best practices at The Dean Clinic, see: ‘How Dean Clinic Redesigned Primary Care‘, with previous stints at Fallon Clinic, Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare and (Atrius Health founding member) Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates. In other words his ‘street cred’ in the integrated delivery system space was/is – well – impeccable.
I last saw Samitt at the ACO Summit in DC 2013 where he gave an excellent presentation on how Dean was bridging that elusive volume-to-value divide via incremental though progressive blended shifts in physician compensation from production to outcomes based incentives – including the underlying though mission critical enabling cultural shifts. Brilliant I thought! Just the ticket many will need to vision and implement the broad tenets of the Affordable Care Act, especially the likes of DaVita a best in 
class though single specialty services provider.
So when this abrupt and (short lived tenure) departure was announced, I found myself wondering what could possibly be wrong with this marriage? It just fits too well….
We shall see as more is revealed over time. I invite any of you with inside information to share what you know. Better yet, Craig can you willingly provide any perspective here?
acowatch.me 
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