In an effort to change consumer behavior, more than 25 percent of healthcare leaders are offering incentives for healthy behaviors and a mere 3.4 percent are turning to high deductible health plans.
The finding comes from the 8th Annual Industry Pulse Report, a survey conducted by Change Healthcare and The HealthCare Executive Group. It includes responses from over 2,000 Change Healthcare customers, 54.1 percent of whom are from health plans. Smaller percentages of providers, hospitals and vendors also participated. Respondents included those in the C-suite, managers, directors and presidents, among others.
Another 23.7 percent said they’re creating patient-provider partnership programs to alter consumer behavior. And despite the rise of health technology, only 1.7 percent of respondents said they’re providing digital health assistants to promote healthier choices.
Why? Perhaps it’s because of a variety of factors limiting the use of mobile and digital health.
Nearly half of the respondents cited security and privacy concerns as a barrier to tech adoption. Other top roadblocks included limited functionality of tools, a redundant and confusing app environment, system interoperability, healthcare literacy and a poor user interface design.
Still, healthcare leaders do believe certain mobile technologies are having a positive impact on the industry.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Seventy-nine percent said diagnostic apps have the greatest potential to transform healthcare in the future. But only 13 percent said such applications have an impact on today’s environment.
Comparatively, half of the respondents indicated wellness apps and fitness trackers currently have an effect on healthcare. But slightly fewer individuals — 37 percent — believe fitness trackers will be impactful moving forward.
Ideally, health IT should also improve efficiency. When asked which technologies are leading to significant administrative cost efficiencies, participants gave a few answers. The majority — 63.2 percent — pointed to clinical integration. Artificial intelligence and wearables both made the cut, with 22.8 percent selecting each of them. Though blockchain is an up-and-coming technology, 7.9 percent of respondents said it’s leading to administrative cost savings. Slightly over 4 percent chose augmented and virtual reality.
Shifting focus, the survey also took a closer look at value-based care. Organizations are relying on a variety of reimbursement models, including risk sharing (45.6 percent), pay-for-performance (43 percent) and full capitation (34.9 percent).
But there are challenges standing in the way of full-fledged adoption of value-based reimbursement methods. Respondents were asked about the top three hurdles preventing implementation. The top answers included the complexity of changing physician behavior (38.5 percent), resistance to change (37.8 percent), confusion surrounding payment models and risk management (35.6 percent) and a lack of systems to support value-based reimbursement (35.6 percent).
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