Employer Healthcare Strategies

Kicking and screaming, the healthcare industry is being forced to evolve. Many have anticipated an Uber-style renovation of familiar healthcare models, in the pursuit of customer-first care.

Take insurer Oscar, for example. The experience of finding a doctor and selecting health insurance options with Oscar has been compared to the ease of calling an Uber.

The healthcare industry is very diverse, so broad recommendations must also be very general. But in every case, industry thinkers call on the next generation of healthcare providers to be customer-centric.

The decisive victories of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump during the Michigan primaries sent ripples through all of American politics. 

And while there are many factors at play, some thinkers pin the rise of party outsiders into frontrunner status on their positions on the Affordable Care Act.

Hyperinflation of healthcare costs takes a huge bite out of salaries, so that even as compensation rises, take home pay is dropping for many. 

With candidates on both sides of the political spectrum offering remedies, the voting public is even more responsive than political prognosticators anticipated.

Researchers from Harvard and the University of Toronto are predicting an Uber-style disruption within the healthcare industry.

Internal regulations make such a transformation more challenging for healthcare than it was for the taxi industry, but the authors point to medical entrepreneurship like 23andMe as models for the future.

The Healthcare Leadership Council is an independent coalition of healthcare executives and leaders. They work to inform the powers that be of key legislative moves which could improve the American healthcare system.

This year, they have 6 key recommendations for the White House. One such recommendation is Interoperability, or the sharing of patient healthcare information between different organizations for maximum benefit to the individual.

As healthcare costs rise, many consumers are looking to urgent care centers for financial relief.

A fast-growing sector, many hospitals, insurance companies, and even retail drugstores are investigating how the addition of urgent care centers could bring in extra profits from a demographic in search of savings.

In Forbes' "The Future Health Ecosystem Today," important developing factors within the healthcare industry are projected into the future roles they will likely one day occupy. Today, 60% of working people get their healthcare through a private, self-insured company.

It's old news that workplace healthcare costs have been rising, but this report suggests that at least some of this is due to inefficiency and spending misappropriation. The study asserts that 88% of healthcare costs address only 20% of employee health outcomes.

The study calls for a reallignment of corporate health spending norms, which may drive present costs down by 30-50%.

In the wake of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's death, the implications for many aspects of health care reform are stuck in limbo.

The Supreme Court was ready to rule on a number of health care issues in the coming months.

Without Scalia's vote and influence at play, anything could happen.

The recent emergence of onsite clinics as a "popular" solution to rising health care costs has allowed employers, large and small, to enhance their employee health plans without disrupting the overall design. More surprising though, the rapid growth in these "member only" facilities may be having an indirect (and positive) impact on the entire health care system. 

With 6 million and counting Americans signed up for coverage through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), more widely known as ‘ObamaCare,’ how does this groundbreaking health care shift affect your business? Though on the surface, PPACA primarily impacts employees of smaller organizations with under 100 full-time employees, before you begin counting your coworkers, let’s discuss PPACA’s macro effects.

Mike LaPenna is Principal and founder of The LaPenna Group, Inc. and provides strategic and financial consulting services to the health care industry. For twenty-five years, he has provided support to physicians, hospitals, provider networks, and employers for their strategic and tactical initiatives.

Mike is widely considered a thought leader in the on-site clinic arena. He has published a book on the concept and runs the industry-leading blog, onsiteclinics.org.