VITALS
How COVID could lead to satisfied patients The maturation of telehealth will play a key role BY KARA HARTNETT
ore than half of people in the UnitM ed States avoid seeking health care because they find the system convoluted and expensive, according to a recent poll conducted by Harris Poll Consumer Experience Index in partnership with Nashville-based Change Healthcare. A big part of the solution is going to involve care organizations tapping into new digital services to bring them back. “When half of consumers say they’re avoiding care because the system is too hard to deal with, one could argue that, in a digital economy, the effort required to find, access and pay for care is a social determinant of health,” says William Krause, vice president of Connected Consumer Health at Change Healthcare. Conducted in May, the survey included 1,945 adults across the country of various generations and with various insurance plans or lack thereof. Their message was clear, say survey administrators: Consumers want health plans and providers to simplify the experience, end the fragmentation and create a one-stopshop digital solution for accessing, scheduling and paying for health care. Organizations that capitalize on these demands now will gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace — and it’s already unfolding. “What we are seeing on the organizational side is obviously a shift to more digital interactions in terms of care delivery but also in terms of the piece of the patient experience that extends beyond clinician-patient interaction,” Alicia
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FALL 2020 | NASHVILLEPOST.COM
Daugherty, managing director for the Market Innovation Center and Service Line Strategy Advisor programs for Advisory Board, tells the Post. More than 80 percent of survey respondents said they believe shopping for health care should be as easy as shopping for other common services, with 76 percent — mostly baby boomers, who are projected to account for about $260 billion of Medicare’s annual acute-care costs by 2030 — saying they wish there was a single place they could shop for health care. Similarly, more than seven out of 10 respondents said they want their insurance and health care providers to communicate more via modern, online platforms and 85 percent think it should be as easy to compare health care costs as it is with other services. In total, two-thirds of consumers surveyed said finding, accessing and paying for care is cumbersome. The COVID-19 pandemic made things even more difficult for patients and doctors but regulators lifted many restrictions that led to major changes. Clinics and hospitals adopted online scheduling platforms that improved communication. The digitization part of this equation still comes with some fragmentation, according to Daugherty, because many providers have invested in technologies that don’t communicate with each other — yet. “In the interest of time and agility, that integration, while it would be great to have, isn’t as much of a priority. So they are taking a little bit more of a piecemeal approach,” Daugherty says. “I think connecting all of it is the next step.” The team at Complete Health Care, which operates two clinics in Nashville, has seen its efforts to digitize its work pay off during the pandemic. Having put in place in 2018 technologies that allow the practice to run completely paperless, owner Ty Babcock says the transition to care delivery under COVID was rather seamless. Complete was able to establish pop-up care sites and drive-thru testing — it was one of the few private clinics in the area to do so — because its scheduling system was already online. Being two steps ahead on that front has allowed Babcock and his team to build new revenue streams from consulting on best practices for reopening. The practice this summer also accounted for nearly 10 percent of Davidson County’s COVID tests. All of this was made possible by making health care more
FRUSTRATIONS AND A WISH LIST
75%
of consumers believe “Telehealth is the future of medicine”
81%
believe “Shopping for health care should be as easy as shopping for other common services”
56%
agreed “The health care experience is so bad today I know people who will do anything to avoid care”
67%
said “Finding a good doctor is like finding a needle in a haystack”
68%
said “I often don’t know how much a medical treatment / appointment costs until months after the fact”
Source: The Harris Poll and Change Healthcare
