A new study from PwC's Risk Assurance practice shows that healthcare providers and payers are often not aligned when it comes to navigating risk management challenges.
The study surveyed senior executives, board members and risk professionals worldwide on current risk management practices and perspectives.
Researchers received nearly 1,700 survey responses from across 23 industry segments and conducted one-on-one interviews with executives from select Fortune 100 companies.
Here are four study findings.
1. Providers and payers differ in their risk management approaches. Providers (56 percent) are less likely than payers (82 percent) to say they manage their risks well. However, both payers (57 percent) and providers (53 percent) are more likely than overall respondents to say they identify opportunities ahead of competitors. Still, they need to ensure their risk management practices are resilient enough to act as a foundation for sustainable growth, PwC said.
2. Providers need to boost their risk agility in a rapidly changing environment. Payers (64 percent) report they are more risk agile than providers (42 percent), the study found. Still, PwC said, payers (32 percent) and providers (25 percent) fall behind other sectors in regard to changing their business processes and organizational structures rapidly to meet new business needs.
3. Payers outpace providers in their use of data analytics tools for risk management. Providers (28 percent) are less likely than payers (71 percent) to use IT security protocols, the study found. Payers are also more likely to use advanced risk management techniques than the total number of respondents is, but they're less likely to use scenario-planning techniques to boost risk agility, PwC said.
4. Alignment is critical for healthcare organizations' long-term success. More payers (76 percent) than providers (48 percent) said their strategic planning functions are aligned with risk management. "As the healthcare industry strives for greater cost containment and more consolidation, active alignment across an organization can be a significant driver of long-term success by helping providers build organizational efficiency, agility, and resiliency and by setting them up for successful joint ventures, collaborations and affiliations," the study's author's wrote.