Features Editor
Welcome to the first issue of HMT for 2016! It being the season for resolutions and predictions, I feel obliged to offer my take on the future of healthcare tech, though admittedly my perspective is tainted by my own desires and personal experiences.
After college, I became unexpectedly ill and was forced to quit a decent job in order to make less money. That may seem absolutely ridiculous, but as an uninsured, single person with an undiagnosed problem (which eventually was revealed to be Lyme disease), qualifying for Medicaid was the only option if I wanted to get the care I needed and avoid a mountain of unpaid medical bills. Quitting my job, going on food stamps, and deferring my interest-bearing loans cost me a fortune and put my life on hold for over a year – but doing so actually minimized the damage. Only in a corrupt, inflationary system would any of this make sense – and sadly, healthcare services in this country are exactly that.
Since my experience, the landscape has changed with the full implementation of the Affordable Care Act, but for me the problem of being uninsured remains. Simply put, health insurance is too costly for a single, indebted millennial like me to justify, and the high-deductible plans I can afford make the insurance I’d pay for utterly worthless. And I’m not alone.
The rate of uninsured is dropping due to the mandate, but consumers are being forced to front more and more of the bill for their healthcare. It boggles the mind, and it’s a sign that the system is still every bit as corrupt and inflationary as it was in the past. For single, kid-free members of the middle class like myself, the benefits offered by insurance subsidies may as well be non-existent.
So, either the market will push everyone to have children and take lesser-paying jobs to lower their income, or another solution will present itself. While I remain confident the government will remain in the pocket of the insurance companies, thus continuing on the path of ineptitude when it comes to lowering the cost of care for the middle class, I do believe technology will respond positively to this growing concern – and the response of the health IT industry will be telemedicine.
Going forward, the importance of telemedicine cannot be overstated. While presently the level of adoption and acceptance makes it difficult for the real benefits to be quantified on a mass scale, telemedicine will begin to carve out its own niche in the market by offering consumers cheaper alternatives and more control over their own care as costs continue to soar.
I remain unconvinced that penalties will force holdouts to purchase insurance when they can’t afford it. As such, I believe those who desperately need antibiotics or a swift diagnosis are going to find telemedicine to be far more affordable than paying for an office visit. In many cases, patients already are – even if they have the luxury of great insurance coverage.
As wages remain stagnant, and we continue to see young people saddled with debt, the rising cost of healthcare is going to be difficult to contain – the time for something to give is now. 2016 is the year telemedicine will really find its legs and start to shine. Telemedicine won’t solve the problem of high insurance costs, but for some a prescription and a few diagnostic tests can go a long way toward avoiding a disaster, and there are profits to be had by filling that need.
As always, I welcome your feedback at [email protected].
