As the Senate considers the American Health Care Act that squeaked through the House, there is one concern that unites Americans: a desire to contain the rising cost of healthcare.
The latest Kaiser Health Tracking Poll finds 45 percent of Americans fear their cost of care will increase if the bill becomes law.
Hospitals can play a major role in bending the cost curve by collaborating with innovative entrepreneurs who are creating quality, low-cost health services. The need is great because the American Health Care Act would slash Medicaid enrollment, chop subsidies that have made health insurance affordable for low-income Americans and eliminate mandates that have required young, healthy people to have insurance, leading many to go without medical coverage. By 2026, the number of uninsured would rise by 23 million, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis.
For millions of Americans, insurance-controlled pricing for healthcare would become a thing of the past. Suddenly, they would be consumers in a truly free market for care, searching for low-priced, pay-as-you-go health services. This potential shift in the dynamics of demand for large segments of the population would come as hospitals and major health practices work with insurers to push towards value-based care, furthering the need for low-cost service options, and as the supply of healthcare providers, relative to demand, is dwindling, particularly in rural, lower-income regions.
Healthcare innovation can provide the prescription for this problem. Indeed, entrepreneurs have been busy building new healthcare models for consumers who may have to go out of pocket or face limited access to care, and for employers who require low-cost options.
Consider how an innovative approach to medical care like telemedicine can improve efficiency and reduce costs. Services such as MD Live, Teladoc, Doctor on Demand, American Well and SkyMD, all developed by entrepreneurs, are making it possible for patients to have remote access through virtual physician visits, saving them travel time to the practitioner’s office. These services are built upon business models that can reduce the time a doctor must spend with a patient, an efficient approach to providing care that allows for lower cost. Such telemedicine businesses are imbuing healthcare with an entrepreneurial spirit that is disrupting the industry. Hospitals can and should participate in this kind of disruption.
Entrepreneurs have a skill set that hospitals dearly need. The leadership of top hospitals is comprised of great administrators, clinicians and physicians, but they are typically not entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are talented at bringing life to ideas with commercial potential, creating value from new concepts. They may be consultants, leaders of start-ups or CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, but whatever their position, they possess the kind of innovative skills we need to reimagine healthcare so it can better meet market realities. So hospitals would do well to collaborate with entrepreneurs who can figure out how they can take their best practices, procedures, therapies, care models, and insights, and make them scalable, repeatable, and affordable in the digital age for the benefit of patients.
Today, hospitals have an unprecedented opportunity to collaborate with entrepreneurs who are developing and refining game-changing innovations. Biosensors are making it possible to dramatically speed diagnoses by allowing patients to measure and share vital signs, including heart rate, blood oxygen level, and temperature, and patients are now able to track their own blood sugar levels and blood pressure. Such digital diagnostics can generate early signs of illness and help practitioners address problems before they become serious and costly. The more willing hospitals are to share their experience and data with developers, the greater the benefit they will accrue from the collaboration.
Hospitals should partner with entrepreneurs to disrupt their own business models with innovative solutions that address the growing gap between supply and demand for healthcare services, while also satisfying the increasing desire among millennials for technological engagement with their personal healthcare. This is how we can achieve the triple aim of improving health outcomes, elevating patient experience and reducing costs in the new world of healthcare, whether or not the American Health Care Act becomes law.
Leonard Achan, RN, MA, ANP, is Chief Innovation Officer and Senior Vice President of Innovation and Business Development at Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS).
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