Let’s face it. Healthcare as an industry is in a tizzy right now. With health insurance exchanges making headlines, providers looking for new ways to keep current patients and attract new ones, payers doing their best to adjust to last-minute regulations, and patients scrambling to make sense of it all, it is a wild time to be in this industry. By Cynthia Porter, president, Porter Research
By Cynthia Porter, president, Porter Research
Let’s face it. Healthcare as an industry is in a tizzy right now. With health insurance exchanges making headlines, providers looking for new ways to keep current patients and attract new ones, payers doing their best to adjust to last-minute regulations, and patients scrambling to make sense of it all, it is a wild time to be in this industry.
But wild times only last so long. We’re likely to see a settling down period in the next three to five years as the exchanges sort themselves out, Meaningful Use rolls on, and ICD-10 comes and goes. No matter what part of the industry you’re in, the time is now to refocus your approach to the business of healthcare if you want to land on the other side of these uncertain times.
Perhaps we can learn a lesson or two from the recent US Postal Service/Amazon partnership. Instead of resigning itself to obscurity and looming privatization, the USPS decided to think outside of the box and look for new business opportunities. Amazon customers in select US cities can now receive shipments on Sundays via the USPS. The Sunday shipping service will likely be rolled out to additional cities if demand warrants it. This arrangement may keep the USPS alive awhile longer, potentially forcing it to embrace even newer business models down the road.
Healthcare stakeholders seem to be looking at every possibility when it comes to identifying new business models that could afford them staying power. Hospitals now offer health plans. Providers of every type are constantly looking at acquisition, merger, and partnership opportunities with likeminded organizations. Payers are buying up hospitals. Retailers and startups are partnering to become the newest access point for patients. Wearable technology is taking mobile health to an entirely new level. The desire to stay in the game is there. It’s just a matter of figuring out what will work best for each organization and their specific patient populations. What works in California may not work in Georgia, and vice versa.
I got a glimpse of this desire at a recent Atlanta Health 2.0 Meetup featuring a panel of chief marketing officers from Piedmont Health, Emory Hospital, and WellStar – three of metro Atlanta’s largest health systems. All are concerned about recent drops in patient volume, and all want to find new ways to ensure their doors stay open. Every one of them mentioned the need for a robust social media presence, and all agreed on the need for greater access points, such as urgent care centers. But state telemedicine regulations, tightening budgets, and physicians that still prefer paper are hampering some of the ideas they’d like to get off the ground to truly be competitive.
It will be interesting to see which of these new business models stands the test of time, and which have the greatest impact on out-of-control healthcare spending and inadequate access. What business strategy have you seen lately that stands out? Is there a provider, payer or vendor approaching healthcare in a novel way that could be replicated? Email me at cporter@billian.com and let me know. I’d love to share a long list of examples in my next post.
