Healthcare Trends and Opportunities Outlined in White Paper Continue to Resonate, Reflect Current Headlines
You’ve heard us say this before: healthcare consumers aren’t empowered. Instead, they’re “reluctant, anxious and looking for help,” as we detailed in a recent white paper (available free here). The paper not only describes additional trends but also explains some of the resulting opportunities for healthcare providers and insurers.
We continue to be pleased with how the paper’s content is performing: it’s been hitting the mark over and over on subjects that are consistently discussed and covered at industry and news sites. Recently, for example:
- Health Data Management reports that one-third of employers are eyeing private exchanges. The white paper contends that “big businesses have used ‘Obamacare’ as air cover for moving employees to exchanges” and details how some companies are getting out of the health insurance business.
- A column in Hospital Impact (rightly) insists that healthcare quality can and should be measured, and yesterday a FierceHealthcare post gave an overview of Consumer Reports’ ranking of the top 10 safest hospitals. While sharing the limitations of some existing tools comparing quality (including reviews to ratings), the white paper urges hospitals and insurers to embrace quality transparency.
- Earlier this week, Modern Healthcare published this: “Most states score poorly on price transparency.” In addition to covering the same study on the Media Logic blog, the white paper details some third-party reports and (more than) strongly encourages payers and providers to take the lead.
- And the discussion about high deductibles continues to get heated. Here’s a piece in the L.A. Times: “Obamacare and rising deductibles.” Will they lower healthcare costs or increase them? Opinions vary, but something we already know is that high deductibles are forcing healthcare consumers to shop for providers and services. The white paper calls these deductibles the new copays and shows their growing impact on consumers.
Want additional background on the implications of these stories on healthcare marketing? Get the full paper: “Meet the New Health Care Consumer: Reluctant, Anxious and Looking for Help.”
