By Sarah Armstrong, CEO, TREND Health Partners
Since I was a kid, I’ve loved the stories of Dr. Seuss. They’re playful, imaginative, and packed with lessons that somehow feel just as relevant in boardrooms as they do in bedtime routines. In fact, at our most recent TREND Leadership Development Institute, our theme was “Oh, the places you’ll go, because not only are we TRENDing Up as an organization, Seuss still has a lot to teach us about courage, growth, and leading with heart.
But today, I want to talk about a different Seuss story, one that feels especially relevant to the state of the revenue cycle in American healthcare.
It’s the story of The Sneetches.
For those who haven’t read it in a while: the story tells of two kinds of Sneetches, those with stars on their bellies, and those without. The Star-Bellies looked down on the Plain-Bellies, and that social divide defined their lives… until a character named Sylvester McMonkey McBean arrived, promising to help everyone belong, for a price. He made a fortune switching stars on and off, stoking division for profit. And in the end, no one could remember who had been who. The only real winners were the ones who sold the machines.
Sound familiar?
In the payment integrity division of American healthcare, we’ve been living out a Sneetches story of our own. Payers and providers are cast as opposites, starred and unstarred, often encouraged to view each other with skepticism, even hostility. Among them stand vendors who may very well intend to be “helping,” but while advocating for their “side” contributing to the friction. Like McBean, many of them monetize complexity and mistrust. The more confusion, the more they can charge to “fix” it.
At TREND Health Partners, we reject that model because we believe that it is the root cause of waste and excessive administrative cost.
We don’t believe in feeding the conflict. We believe in transforming it.
That’s why our work is grounded in collaboration, not combat. We build transparent systems that clarify, not obscure, what’s happening in the revenue cycle. We engage both payers and providers with integrity, always anchored in regulatory precision and shared understanding. Our goal isn’t for one side or the other to “win”, it’s to solve the underlying problems so both sides can win together.
No belly-checking required!
In the land of the claims and the bills and the charts,
Where Payers and Providers lived worlds apart,
Came a team with a dream (and a vision so bold!)
To bridge the great gap, let the future unfold!
No belly-check battles, no squabbles, no fights,
Just data and teamwork to set things all right!
The Sneetches and Lorax, they gathered to see,
Could healthcare be fairer? Well, yes-sir-ee!
With smarts and with heart, with tech and with care,
They built up a system that’s honest and fair.
For patients, for people, for all far and wide,
A future of health with no hoops to divide!
So now let us work, let us fix, let us mend,
For payers and patients and docs to be friends!
With wisdom and teamwork, the future is bright,
A world where all bellies are treated just right!
At TREND, we don’t see ourselves as another McBean. We’re not here to exploit complexity, we’re here to eliminate it. And if The Sneetches shows us the dangers of manufactured division, The Lorax reminds us what it looks like to stand up and speak out when something isn’t right.
In that spirit, TREND aspires to be the Lorax of the revenue cycle:
We speak for the back office.
We speak for the frustrated.
We speak for the possibility of a future where collaboration wins out over conflict, and where patients, payers, and providers all benefit from a system rooted in fairness and clarity.
Because the truth is, patients suffer when the back office breaks down. Billing confusion, administrative waste, and misaligned incentives all create ripple effects that reach the exam room. And no amount of stars, or star-removing machines, will fix that.
The Sneetches eventually realized that the stars didn’t matter. What mattered was how they treated one another.
It’s time for healthcare to learn the same.