TEN TRANSFORMATIVE TRENDS 2021
The Trends Shaping the World of Providers Right Now
I
t’s become something of a truism in U.S. healthcare to say that we’re living in unprecedented times;
yet just because it’s a truism doesn’t mean it’s not true. Indeed, as 2021 rolls forward, the landscape of U.S. health- care is shifting forward rapidly. With a new administration in the White House and control of both houses of Congress in the hands of one party, the federal healthcare policy landscape has changed direction. And of course, the entire period of the past 12 months has been totally dominated by the COVID- 19 pandemic. But the obverse face of the pandemic
is that it has compelled forward a good deal of innovation; as the adage goes, necessity is the mother of invention. Among the many forms of innovation: the acceleration of the development of hospital-at-home programs, so often talked about, and finally now realized. The same is true about the social deter- minants of health, which are finally becoming incorporated into care deliv- ery and care management. So, too, is the current drive for genuine health equity, being pursued by provider leaders in concert with public health leaders.
Over all this innovation hangs the
specter of the coming healthcare cost cliff, which will be upon us all before we know it. As the Medicare actuaries keep reminding us, the annual overall costs of the U.S. healthcare system are exploding right now, from the current $3.6 trillion-ish per year, to around $6 trillion per year within six to seven years. No better burning platform could be designed for healthcare inno- vation than that. Indeed, say experts, the chances are
good that federal policymakers, both in the agencies (the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) and in the U.S. Congress, are inevitably headed towards pushing providers more quickly and intensively into two-sided risk in the coming years, as the alternative—massive provider reimbursement cuts—would be unpal- atable to practically everyone. So in this package of articles—that
also includes pieces on health sys- tems enhancing their digital front door initiatives, how the pandemic has underscored the importance of primary care, and the “new revenue
cycle management” that leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning—readers will be able to look at the most important trends shaping the policy, operational, and technological landscape for providers in the coming years. We hope that these articles are helpful to everyone. --the Editors of Healthcare Innovation
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hcinnovationgroup.com | MARCH/APRIL 2021
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