Herewith some provocative questions for hospital executive, trustees and directors at a Society for Healthcare Governance symposium and reported in Hospitals & Health Networks:
Jamie Orlikoff, a healthcare-governance expert, asks “How many of you can say you have a retail strategy in place?” Clearly, some hospitals and health systems are, as Orlikoff put it, “going to be blindsided by consumerism.”
Orlikoff noted that the first question a patient will ask if likely to be “’How much will this cost me?’”
”The traditional reply from healthcare providers? ‘Don’t worry about it. Your insurance will cover it.”’
But, Orlikoff pointed out, today’s consumers would say: “Well, no, I have a $5,000 deductible. If you can’t give me that answer, I’ll go to someone who will.”
“And once they know how much a procedure is going to cost them, consumers have an immediate follow-up question: How good is the quality of what I’m paying for? If a hospital can’t provide proof of value, Orlikoff said, the individual again will either go elsewhere, or decide he might not need that procedure after all.”
Rich Umbdenstock, who recently retired as head of the American Hospital Association, discussed narrow networks and asked: “If you were forming a narrow network, would you choose your hospital to be in it?”
Among the factors to consider, he said, paraphrased here by H&HN:
• “How do we do less … with less … and get better outcomes for the customer/provider/partner’s return on investment?
• “Can we fund our strategic plan on the 10 to 30 percent less revenue we will be getting from Medicare and other payers?
• “Can we manage payment risk?
• “How are we solving the consumer/patient hassle map? In other words, how are hospitals improving customer service and making the health care experience less complex and onerous?
• “As a board, how are we adjusting our mission/plan/metrics/agenda/structure/composition/management incentives?
“How do we do less … with less … and get better outcomes for the customer/provider/partner’s return on investment?
• Can we fund our strategic plan on the 10 to 30 percent less revenue we will be getting from Medicare and other payers?
• “Can we manage payment risk?
• “How are we solving the consumer/patient hassle map? In other words, how are hospitals improving customer service and making the health care experience less complex and onerous?
• “As a board, how are we adjusting our mission/plan/metrics/agenda/structure/composition/management incentives?”
