Insights
Field notes from inside California healthcare.
We publish what we learn growing healthcare organizations — Medi-Cal, CalAIM, behavioral health, FQHCs, and value-based care.
CalAIM
What ECM providers get wrong about member enrollment
Eligibility lists are not a growth strategy. Here's what an actual enrollment funnel looks like.
Medi-Cal
Healthcare SEO that actually reaches Medi-Cal patients
Intent, language, and local presence — the SEO playbook for FQHCs and safety-net clinics.
Behavioral Health
Building a referral engine for IOP and outpatient programs
Hospitals, MCPs, and CBOs — how durable behavioral health referral networks are built.
Provider Recruitment
Why your clinician pipeline is stalling — and how to unstall it
Employer brand, channel mix, and the recruitment funnel California healthcare orgs need.
MCPs
Marketing to Managed Care Plans without sounding like a vendor
Positioning, materials, and engagement programs that win MCP partnerships.
Community
Community engagement that earns trust, not just impressions
Stakeholder programs for CBOs, CHW organizations, and CalAIM providers.
FQHC
Designing a digital front door for an FQHC, not a private practice
What a Medi-Cal-first homepage, scheduling flow, and patient portal should actually do.
Value-Based Care
Growing inside a value-based contract: attribution is your funnel
Why attribution dynamics — not marketing campaigns — drive growth in VBC arrangements.
AI
Where AI actually moves the needle in healthcare marketing (and where it doesn't)
An honest map of high-leverage AI use cases for healthcare growth teams in 2026.
CalAIM
Community Supports: building a pipeline before the contract closes
How CBOs entering the Community Supports market build readiness, referrals, and growth in parallel.
Acquisition
The California healthcare patient-acquisition channel mix for 2026
What's working, what's saturated, and what's emerging across paid, organic, and partnership channels.
Reputation
Reputation management for healthcare: what to measure, what to respond to
A grown-up framework for healthcare reviews, responses, and reputational risk.
The Playbook
Our point of view on healthcare growth.
Ten principles that shape every California healthcare engagement we run.
Understand the population before the channel
Medi-Cal, CalAIM, and commercial populations behave differently. Strategy starts with who, not where.
Design for compliance, then for conversion
HIPAA, PHI boundaries, and payer rules shape what's possible. Build the rails first.
Treat MCPs and CBOs as growth channels
Hospitals, MCPs, IPAs, and CBOs are where durable referral and partnership growth actually compounds.
Measure healthcare outcomes, not vanity metrics
New patients, enrolled members, qualified clinicians, partner referrals — the metrics that move the organization.
Lead with equity, not as an afterthought
Language access, cultural responsiveness, and geographic reach are growth strategy in California — not compliance overhead.
Earn trust before you ask for action
California healthcare populations have been over-promised. Show up consistently before any conversion ask.
Build durable referral relationships, not one-off campaigns
Hospitals, PCPs, MCP care managers, and CBOs refer because they trust the loop — invest in the loop.
Instrument the funnel end-to-end
Attempted, reached, consented, enrolled, retained — measure every stage or you'll mis-diagnose every leak.
Hire and partner from the communities you serve
Peer staff, CHWs, and community liaisons with lived experience consistently outperform generic outreach teams.
Treat data infrastructure as a growth lever
MCPs, payers, and partners increasingly buy from organizations that can prove outcomes. Reporting is a moat.
Want the playbook applied to your organization?
Start with a focused Healthcare Growth Audit.