Embracing transformation to thrive in the future of healthcare

For months, the pandemic has forced healthcare organizations to put aside long-term transformation initiatives to focus on the short-term adjustments necessary to deliver care safely and stabilize financially. While crisis-related priorities will continue to be top of mind, leaders are starting to re-prioritize long-term planning and rethink how they will transform their organizations for the future.

Recent research from Huron finds that leaders are pushing ahead with urgency to change how their organizations operate and deliver care. To push their organizations forward, leaders’ main priorities and investments will focus on cost optimization, growth, care delivery and consumerism.

More than half of leaders surveyed by Huron predict their cost-saving measures will include revenue management, portfolio redefinition and clinical documentation improvement. 47% expect the adoption of robotic process automation and artificial intelligence to generate savings.

While leaders are aligned on the need for cost-saving measures, more transformational strategies are needed to permanently improve margins and stay ahead of competition.

To kickstart long-term transformation, leaders will have to evolve typical cost reduction strategies into a data-driven cost transformation approach that re-imagines their organization’s operations and care delivery strategy. This approach is what will help organizations to reinvest in areas that further their vision and mission.

To make significant gains, leaders need technology-driven initiatives that optimize core functions such as revenue cycle and supply chain. This includes optimizing core technology to improve business systems and the use of advanced analytics to drive efficiency and decision making.

Care transformation is a top priority for leaders surveyed by Huron and will be at the center of cost optimization and growth strategies. Across Huron’s findings, leaders identify opportunities to improve care access, build integrated care delivery models and expand virtual care.

Leaders view virtual care as a long-term growth strategy as well as an opportunity to improve care access and increase patient volume. As more consumers opt for a digital-first approach to care, the challenge now is for healthcare organizations to find the right balance of in-person and virtual care offerings.

Altering existing service lines is no longer a sufficient tactic to improve care. Progressive leaders are moving with urgency toward integrated care delivery models that will enable organizations to provide care along a continuum from wellness to episodic care to chronic care management via a seamless delivery system.

The pandemic and consumer-driven trends have made it apparent that change is needed. Consumers will continue to be smarter shoppers, seeking more transparency regarding price and quality, and organizations will need to fully embrace consumer preferences to generate loyalty, attract new customers and provide better care.

Healthcare organizations can no longer afford to limit their knowledge of their consumers to financial or clinical information. Building a system that works for everyone will require organizations to understand the needs and challenges of all their patient populations.

Even though 63% of leaders in Huron’s research list social determinants of health and health equity initiatives as a high priority, the range of activities in support of these initiatives varies widely. To determine how SDOH and health equity initiatives fit into their overall strategies, leaders will need a better understanding of the conditions impacting their individual communities.

As healthcare organizations refocus on how to position their organizations for the future, the alignment of organizational and leader goals has never been more important. Leaders will have to engage their teams and build the buy-in needed for initiatives to succeed. Organizations that can stabilize from COVID-19 and move strategic plans forward stand the best chance of staying ahead of continued disruption and competition.

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September 9, 2021

Teladoc Health Is Providing Free Virtual Health Care Services to Those Impacted by Hurricane Ida

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Teladoc Health Is Providing Free Virtual Health Care Services to Those Impacted by Hurricane Ida

Teladoc Health, the global leader in whole-person virtual care, is providing free, 24/7 general medical telehealth visits to residents, first responders, and others directly impacted by Hurricane Ida. People from the hardest hit areas in Louisiana and Mississippi who are now being displaced can seek treatment from a licensed health care professional for any non-emergency illness by calling Teladoc directly at 855-225-5032.

Among those adult and pediatric conditions that can be effectively diagnosed and treated as part of Teladoc’s general medical no-cost offering are common conditions including sinus problems, respiratory infections, allergies, cold and flu symptoms, and many other non-emergency illnesses. People seeking physician-authorization for prescription refills of non-narcotic drugs can also get assistance. Those who think they may have been exposed to COVID-19 or believe they have symptoms can be screened and triaged for care as needed. For emergencies, patients should call 911.

Teladoc Health made these virtual care services available at no cost to communities dealing with forest fires in the western United States as well as states in the northeastern U.S. affected by Tropical Storm Henri.

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September 8, 2021

US Comes In Last in Health Care Rankings

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US Comes In Last In Health Care Rankings Of High-income Countries

The US once again, ranks last in access to health care, equity, and spending among high-income countries, despite spending a far greater share of its economy on health care.

The nation has landed at the bottom of all seven studies the Commonwealth Fund has conducted since 2004. The US is the only one of the 11 countries surveyed not to have universal healthcare coverage.

The latest data does not reflect the impact of the pandemic, but it lays out the strengths and weaknesses of each country’s health care system when Covid-19 impacted the world in early 2020.

US health insurance does not provide enough protection, which compromises Americans’ health and finances, which would promote better health care access and quality, particularly for the uninsured and disadvantaged. This causes people to skip care or become burdened with medical debt.

Half of lower-income US adults reported that they did not receive care because of the cost, compared to just over a quarter of higher-income Americans. In the United Kingdom, only 12% of people with lower incomes and 7% with higher incomes said they faced such financial barriers.

What makes it interesting is that a high-income American was more likely to report financial hurdles than a low-income person in nearly all the other countries surveyed, which includes Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK.

Norway, the Netherlands, and Australia were the best performers in the study, which looked at access to care, health care outcomes, administrative efficiency, equity, and care process.

In addition to lower access to care, the US also ranked poorly on maternal mortality, infant mortality, life expectancy at age 60, and deaths that were potentially preventable with timely access to care.

The US also landed at the bottom when it came to administrative efficiency because of the time providers and patients have to spend dealing with paperwork, duplicative medical testing, and insurance disputes.

The one area in which America excelled was the treatment process, where it earned second place. The nation outperformed in terms of rates of mammography screening and influenza vaccination for older adults as well as the share of adults who talked with a health care provider about nutrition, smoking, and alcohol use.

Adults in the US and Norway reported the highest usage of web-based portals for communicating medical concerns and refilling medications. And among those with chronic illness, American adults were among the most likely to discuss goals, priorities, and treatment options with their providers, though less likely to receive as much support as they felt was needed.

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September 7, 2021

Biden-⁠Harris Administration Lowers Health Care Costs

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Fact Sheet: Biden-Harris Administration Lowers Health Care Costs

Like President Biden, Vice President Harris also believes that health care is a right, not a privilege. Together, they promised to ensure that every American has access to quality, affordable health care and the peace of mind that health insurance brings. Just weeks after taking office, the Biden-Harris Administration opened a special enrollment period through HealthCare.gov to provide all Americans the opportunity to sign up for health insurance.

Health insurance is now more affordable than ever thanks to the American Rescue Plan. Because of the law’s enhanced tax credits, nine million Americans who buy their coverage through the Affordable Care Act have lower premiums, saving families an average of $40 per person per month. Since April 1, over one-third of new and returning HealthCare.gov customers have found a quality plan with a premium of $10 or less per month, and returning HealthCare.gov consumers have seen their premiums drop, on average, by 40 percent.

This success is why it is so critical to pass the Build Back Better Agenda through budget reconciliation: to ensure that Americans can continue to take advantage of these savings.

Reducing Health Care Costs. The Build Back Better Agenda will extend the enhanced tax credits that lower premiums. Extending these lower premiums will allow nine million people to continue to save hundreds of dollars per year on their premiums, and four million uninsured people will gain coverage.

Passing the Build Back Better Agenda Is Urgent. The premium reductions in the American Rescue Plan have provided a critical lifeline for millions of people and buoyed our work to enroll consumers to date. We cannot let this critical assistance come to an end. If it expires, millions of Americans will see their premiums increase. On average, premiums would nearly double, and some Americans could see their premiums increase by thousands of dollars per year.

President Biden and Vice President Harris are committed to building on this progress through the Build Back Better Agenda, which will expand on these efforts and make healthcare more accessible and affordable. Specifically, the President’s Build Back Better Agenda includes:

Expanding Medicare Coverage. Medicare today doesn’t cover dental, vision, or hearing services, with very limited exceptions. Many beneficiaries have to pay out of pocket, often costing them thousands of dollars per year. Americans who can’t afford that are forced to go without these critical services instead. That’s why it’s critical we add comprehensive dental, vision, and hearing services to Medicare, so that all beneficiaries will have affordable access to these vital health services.

Lowering Prescription Drug Costs. For every other type of health care service, Medicare works to get the best prices for American seniors. But for prescription drugs – and only prescription drugs – Medicare is prohibited by law from negotiating for the best deal. Medicare should be able to negotiate the prices it pays for prescription drugs, and drug companies that raise their prices faster than inflation should have to pay a penalty.

Closing the Medicaid Coverage Gap. The Affordable Care Act created new pathways to health coverage by expanding Medicaid. Yet, nearly 4 million people can’t get covered because they live in states that refuse to expand Medicaid. The Biden-Harris Administration believes people deserve to have the peace of mind that health insurance brings, which is why we must close the Medicaid gap by providing federally-administered coverage for people in states that refuse to expand, and therefore can’t get covered through no fault of their own.

The Biden-Harris Administration continues to do everything we can to make high quality health care more affordable and accessible. By lowering health care costs, expanding access to coverage, and enabling Medicare to negotiate prescription drugs, Congress can do its part to bring down costs and secure the health and financial security of the American people.

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September 3, 2021

Studies Show That Vaccines Cut Odds of COVID-19 By Half

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Vaccine Cut Odds of Long Covid by Half

New research from the UK is some of the first to examine the potential risk of experiencing lingering symptoms after a case of covid-19 in vaccinated people, a phenomenon often known as long covid. The study suggests that vaccinated people who become infected are half as likely to experience long-lasting symptoms than the unvaccinated. Importantly, this reduction in risk is in addition to the protection against any symptoms from covid-19 that vaccination already provides.

The data for this new research, published Wednesday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, comes from the COVID Symptom Study: a long-running project that’s tried to keep track of the pandemic’s spread with a free mobile app, through which people in the UK are encouraged to report any covid-like symptoms they experience and other relevant details, including whether they’ve tested positive for the virus as well as their vaccination status. The app was launched in March 2020, and there are reportedly around 4.5 million unique users. In the UK, people have access to vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech, Oxford/AstraZeneca, and Moderna.

The researchers compared the outcomes of around a million users who reported being partially and/or fully vaccinated to a control group of unvaccinated users. Up until July 2021, about 8,000 of these vaccinated individuals reported a confirmed breakthrough infection (less than 1% of the total sample), with only about 2,000 reporting an infection a week or more after the second dose. Compared to the unvaccinated and infected, vaccinated people were significantly less likely to report needing hospitalization, reported having no symptoms more often, and reported having less symptoms on average when they did get sick. Only about 5.2% of the fully vaccinated and infected reported experiencing any symptoms beyond 28 days, compared to 11.4% of the control group, indicating that the odds of having these longer-term symptoms were cut by 47%.

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September 3, 2021