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Bob Kocher

Partner, Venrock · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

investoracademicother@bobkocher ↗LinkedIn ↗bobkocher.org ↗

Bob Kocher leads investments in healthcare IT and healthcare services at Venrock, backing and serving on boards of companies including Devoted Health, Lyra Health, Virta Health, and Aledade. Prior to Venrock, he served as Special Assistant to President Barack Obama for Healthcare and Economic Policy, helping shape the Affordable Care Act.

16statements → 13claims → 9claims resolved → 67%fully supported → 4/5average certainty → 2.19/5average debate potential → 4.7/5argument clarity · the sources → 2said about them ↓

6 supported 1 partly supported 2 contradicted 4 not checkable as stated how the 13 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 12 assertions · 2 opinions · 1 insight · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 13 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 9 are resolved, and 4 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Bob argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Kocher: Provider consolidation lets hospital systems raise prices and delay productivity reforms
“We've had a lot of consolidation on, on the provider side which allows those systems to raise prices and therefore feel less pressure on productivity.”
Bob Kocher Sep 23, 2015 ▶ 8:28 20 VC 074: The Future of Healthcare with Bob Kocher, Partner @ Venrock

Their most notable contradicted claim

Assertion Contradicted
Kocher: Medicare targeted 80% of payments in risk models by 2018
“Medicare announced recently that their goal is to have 80% of payments in risk models by 2018 and that they're moving forward with new types of payment models like bundle payments”
Bob Kocher Sep 23, 2015 ▶ 6:08 20 VC 074: The Future of Healthcare with Bob Kocher, Partner @ Venrock

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
none yet certainty 3
64% certainty 4
83% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

Argument clarity: do they answer the question? how? →

4.7 / 5 directness 5 · coherence 5 · precision 4.7 · compression 4.3

answered every one of 17 assessed questions directly

This is a score against a rubric. It is not a rank. Every host question → answer exchange is scored with names hidden on directness, coherence, precision and compression, 1–5 each, on meaning alone: disfluencies are ignored, and only raw unedited episodes count. This is the score that measures thought. Every scored exchange, scores shown → · The rubric and its checks →

How they sound: speaking style how? →

264 words/min while actually speaking · 29 um and uh per 1k words

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 2,892 words across 1 episode of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 0/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 0/10
setup questions received 80%

Everything Bob Kocher said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Assertion Partly supported
Kocher: Improved ACA margins allowed hospitals and insurers to slow tech adoption
“For the last couple years, quite frankly, the incumbents have done pretty well, and so with the expansion of coverage, there's been a nice uptick in volume of paying customers, and the bad debt that used to plague hospitals and doctors has gone down, and so ma…”
Bob Kocher Sep 23, 2015 ▶ 8:08 20 VC 074: The Future of Healthcare with Bob Kocher, Partner @ Venrock
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kocher: One-third of healthcare visits can be handled via video
“And it so happens that about a third of all healthcare visits can be handled over video from your home, you know, with a one minute waiting time for 40 bucks, which is about 30% of what it costs to go to a doctor's office and about three hours faster.”
Bob Kocher Sep 23, 2015 ▶ 9:07 20 VC 074: The Future of Healthcare with Bob Kocher, Partner @ Venrock
Opinion
Kocher: Healthcare regulators won't block tech that lowers costs
“Most investors and entrepreneurs at first think that regulatory risk is a big problem and really complicated. Regulators since I was one of them are seeking to make the healthcare system be more productive and lower cost. And so technologies and approaches tha…”
Bob Kocher Sep 23, 2015 ▶ 12:30 20 VC 074: The Future of Healthcare with Bob Kocher, Partner @ Venrock
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Kocher: Private startups, not regulation, will drive healthcare disruption through 2025
“And then over time, you know, there'll be future regulatory changes to you that probably cement some of these changes and push us further forward, but I bet for the next decade the disruption comes from the private sector, and so I feel happy to be here.”
Bob Kocher Sep 23, 2015 ▶ 16:13 20 VC 074: The Future of Healthcare with Bob Kocher, Partner @ Venrock
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kocher: Obamacare architects read Clinton reform history but repeated all mistakes
“It's a book that we all read before marking up on the Obamacare reforms so we would not repeat all the mistakes and the lessons, and then we repeated all the mistakes.”
Bob Kocher Sep 23, 2015 ▶ 16:43 20 VC 074: The Future of Healthcare with Bob Kocher, Partner @ Venrock
Assertion Supported
Kocher: Provider consolidation lets hospital systems raise prices and delay productivity reforms
“We've had a lot of consolidation on, on the provider side which allows those systems to raise prices and therefore feel less pressure on productivity.”
Bob Kocher Sep 23, 2015 ▶ 8:28 20 VC 074: The Future of Healthcare with Bob Kocher, Partner @ Venrock
Assertion Supported
Kocher: U.S. healthcare has nine administrators for every physician
“So one of the amazing statistics about U.S. Healthcare is that for every doctor there are 16 FTEs walking around behind that doctor doing stuff, and of that 16, nine of them are administrators. That ratio has gone from one to 10 to one to 16 in the last 20 yea…”
Bob Kocher Sep 23, 2015 ▶ 11:26 20 VC 074: The Future of Healthcare with Bob Kocher, Partner @ Venrock
Insight
Kocher: Building exemplary companies is the key to reforming US healthcare
“My theory of the case was that the way to make healthcare change in America more was to make more companies that show people the way.”
Bob Kocher Sep 23, 2015 ▶ 2:32 20 VC 074: The Future of Healthcare with Bob Kocher, Partner @ Venrock
Assertion Contradicted
Kocher: Medicare targeted 80% of payments in risk models by 2018
“Medicare announced recently that their goal is to have 80% of payments in risk models by 2018 and that they're moving forward with new types of payment models like bundle payments”
Bob Kocher Sep 23, 2015 ▶ 6:08 20 VC 074: The Future of Healthcare with Bob Kocher, Partner @ Venrock
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kocher: Hospitals and insurers are willing to buy from early-stage startups
“They've been jolted enough by the changes in the U.S. Healthcare economy that they're willing to take risks of trying products From earlier stage companies that, you know, may not pass the SOX to compliance, you know, tests that they used to put you through.”
Bob Kocher Sep 23, 2015 ▶ 7:38 20 VC 074: The Future of Healthcare with Bob Kocher, Partner @ Venrock
Assertion Supported
Kocher: Telemedicine patient NPS is 70-80 versus 17 for doctor offices
“The net promoter scores from patients when they use video telemedicine are in the seventies and eighties. When they go to a doctor's office, it's like 17.”
Bob Kocher Sep 23, 2015 ▶ 9:29 20 VC 074: The Future of Healthcare with Bob Kocher, Partner @ Venrock
Assertion Supported
Kocher: US healthcare system contains 30% waste
“The US healthcare system has 30% waste highly erratic outcomes, and unnecessary complexity,”
Bob Kocher Sep 23, 2015 ▶ 13:04 20 VC 074: The Future of Healthcare with Bob Kocher, Partner @ Venrock
Opinion
Kocher: Venrock prefers horizontal healthcare platforms over niche solutions
“And so I prefer ideas that Go after bigger parts of the pie and aren't sort of working on just one type of patient with one type of disease for, you know, one type of thing. And so I prefer more horizontal thinking than, you know, narrow niche-y things.”
Bob Kocher Sep 23, 2015 ▶ 13:16 20 VC 074: The Future of Healthcare with Bob Kocher, Partner @ Venrock
Assertion Supported
Kocher: HITECH Act drove 90% hospital and 80% doctor computer adoption
“We gave roughly thirty billion dollars to doctors to buy meaningfully used computers and to hospitals, and today we have about 90% of hospitals and, you know, 80% of doctors using computers”
Bob Kocher Sep 23, 2015 ▶ 5:04 20 VC 074: The Future of Healthcare with Bob Kocher, Partner @ Venrock
Assertion Supported
Kocher: Specialist doctor matching yields better clinical outcomes at lower cost
“Matching a patient to a person that's very expert at their exact problem and their exact procedure leads to better outcomes and lower cost because there's fewer complications.”
Bob Kocher Sep 23, 2015 ▶ 10:35 20 VC 074: The Future of Healthcare with Bob Kocher, Partner @ Venrock
Assertion Contradicted
Kocher: Hospitals require 0.5 FTEs per bed for billing and collections
“It takes half an FT per bed to bill and collect for patients in a hospital.”
Bob Kocher Sep 23, 2015 ▶ 12:12 20 VC 074: The Future of Healthcare with Bob Kocher, Partner @ Venrock

The other half of the tape: Bob Kocher's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 1 time in 1 episode on 20VC. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 1

Statements about Bob Kocher, by other people (1)

Assertion Supported
Bob Kocher was one of the key shapers of the Affordable Care Act
“In the Obama Administration, Bob was one of the shapers of the Affordable Care Act.”
Harry Stebbings Sep 23, 2015 ▶ 0:45 20 VC 074: The Future of Healthcare with Bob Kocher, Partner @ Venrock

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
0011112017episodesmentions
0112017episodes it came up in
000.50.5112017episodesmentions per episode
2017 1 mention in 1 episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20 VC 074: The Future of Healthcare with Bob Kocher, Partner @ Venrock Sep 23, 2015 12m
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