What changes in healthcare due to COVID-19 will remain after the pandemic is finally in the rear view mirror?

By Clive Riddle, May 1, 2020

The new issue of MCOL ThoughtLeaders asks the question: “What changes in the business of healthcare are taking place during this pandemic that will most likely continue when the pandemic is behind us?” Here’s some highlights of what experts see on the road ahead:

Here are some of the lasting changes Lindsay Resnick, EVP, Wunderman Thompson Health, predicts:

1. Virtual care and telehealth education, acceptance and uptake – from scalability to care management to customer experience, plan for it.
2. Surge in uninsured and COVID-19 as a pre-existing condition will revitalize the push for healthcare reform, and keep healthcare a central 2020 election issue.
3. Changes in consumer spending combined with healthcare’s growing ‘out-of-pocket culture’ will exacerbate delays in care: treatments, prescriptions, elective procedures.
4. New, more prominent roles for nurse practitioners and physician assistants throughout the care continuum are here to stay.
5. Economic downturn and unemployment will be big influencers in insurance product selection
6. Sites of care will continue to move away from hospitals and physician offices to an array of retail clinic options and at-home care alternatives.

Ewa Kisilewicz , Principal, BDC Advisors, Among other things says “COVID-19 has deepened consumer desire to stay away from hospitals. Consumer-centric providers will respond by adding non-hospital ambulatory capacity. Since mid-March, CMS and states released a set of waivers to address anticipated staff shortages caused by COVID-19. While waivers will expire post-COVID, it will be difficult to go back to the ‘pre-COVID norm’ on the changes that improve patient access and expand scope of practice in medically underserved areas – in so far as they do not create patient safety concerns. Once these regulatory barriers are knocked down, there will be little justification to build them back up again.” She also says “physician practice acquisition by non-traditional competitors will also be “fast forwarded” and cause health systems to rethink physician engagement.”

Patrick Horine, CEO, DNV GL Healthcare, noted that “big data, artificial intelligence, and integrated information systems have been evolving for some time in healthcare, but the pandemic has brought about the importance of more timely information being available, connecting providers, tracking & reporting capabilities and the ability to use the data and apply artificial intelligence to it.” He also counsels that a “critical importance to hospitals as well as the government moving forward, is the emergency preparedness, business continuity and contingency planning that will enable a more effective response for any future pandemic,” and that “it will be essential not only within healthcare, but also in companies, and in life, that we have more diligent infection prevention practices in place as well as modification of behaviors to stay healthy.”

Mark Lutes, Chairman, Epstein Becker & Green, PC cautions that “the Public Health Emergency (“PHE”) will leave many health care providers (hospitals, SNFs, hospices, physician groups) seriously weakened…Those providers that are not strongly capitalized will seek new sources of capital and debt relief. In many cases, they will align with better capitalized competitors or new entrants willing to recapitalize the assets. The credit worthiness of patients/consumers has also been impacted by the PHE. The cohort of patients with commercial coverage will shrink lowering providers’ margins. These consumers may find themselves in managed Medicaid or Marketplace options affording less patient choice. Providers will need to be organized in such a way to successfully contract with the organizers of the networks serving these options.

Hank Osowski, Managing Partner, Strategic Health Group  reminds us that the Telemedicine paradigm shift in how care is delivered “will likely impact staffing and real estate models.” He also laments that “what is disturbing however is how reactionary the response has been for many sectors of the healthcare industry.”

And finally, Terri Welter, Principal, ECG Management Consultants, discusses in more detail the following:

• Financial positions are compromised, prompting market repositioning.
• Strategy One: Aggressively renegotiate health plan contracts
• Strategy Two: Reshape service lines to bolster margins.
• Outpatient growth will accelerate.
• Strategy Three: Invest in building the ambulatory network.
• Strategy Four: Revisit capital investment plans.
• Strategy Five: Change the economic and service relationship between physicians and consumers
• Health plan networks will become bigger competitors for health systems and their physician networks.
• Strategy Six: Partner with independent medical groups.
• Strategy Seven: Restructure health system physician enterprise organizations