Fully one-third of healthcare executives surveyed believe non-healthcare market entrants could upend industry business models, according to the results of a new survey of healthcare leaders. Meanwhile, Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) initiatives are disrupting healthcare delivery and reimbursement, with a significant number of respondents planning to offer programs addressing care coordination, transportation, food insecurity, and other factors for members over the next 12 months.
Those were two top-line results revealed in this year’s Industry Pulse, an annual survey designed to provide executives with timely insights on opportunities, challenges, and trends in the healthcare market. The Ninth Annual Industry Pulse survey, sponsored by the Health Care Executive Group (HCEG) and Change Healthcare.
Additional findings show nearly 40% of respondents said a market in which the majority of value-based relationships include both upside and downside shared-risk remains three to five years off—a concerning finding that might indicate payers and providers continue to struggle in their efforts to scale complex, value-based care and reimbursement models from pilot to production.
And, in the press release announcing the survey’s results, David Gallegos, senior vice president, consulting services, at Change Healthcare, was quoted as saying that “Healthcare is navigating disruptions on multiple fronts, and as a consequence, payers and providers are finding themselves stretched thin as they try to address a perfect storm of change. As if insurance market changes,” Gallegos said, “value-based care, consumerization, and regulatory uncertainty weren’t enough, this year the industry is facing a new breed of market entrants and innovators whose impact remains unknown but could be substantial. Even the largest healthcare organizations don’t have the people and processes to move on all these fronts alone, yet they can’t ignore these changes.”
Other Industry Pulse Survey findings include:
> Consumer demand for better access, price/cost transparency, and convenience are all paving the way for external competitors that provide a highly refined consumer experience to enter and disrupt the market;
> Artificial Intelligence (AI) and advances in analytics will address lagging business models and a growing talent gap; and
> Cybersecurity initiatives are a lower funding priority despite the rise in breaches, with 40 percent of respondents citing sophistication of attack outpacing prevention capabilities.
They survey drew responses from 185 healthcare leaders, 28 percent of whom are at the president or C-suite level, 48 percent were vice president-level or above, and includes HCEG members, Health Plan Alliance members, and Change Healthcare customers. The overall report provides a timely perspective on more than 16 topics, including general market trends, population health, value-based care, consumer engagement, clinical and data analytics, risk sharing, SDOH, cybersecurity, and more.
