2012 Healthcare Industry Outlook: Capital and Cost Pressures Persist, Triggering More Consolidation
The Camden Group Foresees New Care Models Taking Hold as Healthcare Reform Advances Amid Sluggish Economy
(firmenpresse) - LOS ANGELES, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 01/05/12 -- The fragile recovery, presidential election year, and expected pivotal Supreme Court decision regarding mandating health insurance coverage will serve as a challenging backdrop this year for healthcare providers as they make more tough decisions about their future and that of the communities they serve. Struggling with rising costs, limited access to capital, and soft patient volumes, hospitals and physicians will increasingly turn to new relationships, mergers, and alliances as they transition to fee-for-value, according to The Camden Group's annual Top Trends in Healthcare in 2012.
"While these are unsettling times for healthcare, uncertainty cannot be an excuse for paralysis," says Steven T. Valentine, president of The Camden Group. "The reality is that healthcare reform is locking into place on schedule, and we expect it to continue as presently configured. Preparing to accept and manage financial risk for a defined population is a core competency that providers must develop in the next three years."
The Camden Group predicts the following top trends:
To survive, operating costs must drop by 10 to 20 percent in the next three to five years.
The key is capturing greater market share while per capita use-rates continue to slide.
With health plans making medical group acquisitions, other medical groups and hospitals will become nervous about potential change in ownership and disruption of referral patterns.
Employment is a top choice for physicians intent on mitigating the unknown future of reimbursement, soft volume and development of new care models.
Co-management arrangements also will increase.
More people will opt for low premium, high deductible health plans, and both employed and unemployed will defer treatment whenever possible.
While most Medicaid payments are flat (or less), Medicare is up less than 2 percent, and many health plans are limiting increases to less than 5 percent. Medical groups and hospitals are coping with wage rates rising 3 percent or more, benefit costs going up 8 to 10 percent, and utility, supplies, and drug costs increasing at least 10 percent.
Development of medical homes and bundled payments will increase, and clinical integration will be pursued with or without accountable care organizations.
Hospitals will begin to consolidate case management, hospitalists, and intensivists into a centralized, coordinated function.
Case management services will be embedded in medical groups and extended to post-acute care.
IT focus will be on meaningful use standards and ICD-10 conversion, with development of HIEs, ambulatory EMR, CPOE, enterprise data warehouses, and results reporting.
Access to capital will continue to get tougher for nonprofits while for-profits will see their access increase.
Non-profits will boost fundraising efforts while lack of access forces independents to weigh their ability to go it alone.
Private equity and public companies will leverage their access to capital to expand their reach into healthcare.
Health plans, with their huge cash reserves, also will invest in managed care capabilities and acquire physician provider groups.
Struggling facilities and medical groups will continue to see markets consolidate as volume concentrates to the leaders.
With healthcare reform, as many as 1 in every 20 acute-care hospitals could close by 2020.
Also by 2020, most states will have a handful of large systems, with very few true independent hospitals without some type of alliance.
With all of the change due to healthcare reform, delivery models, inadequate payment, labor strife, and declining inpatient volume, new leaders will emerge.
C-suites will restructure and reduce management ranks.
With offices in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and Boston, The Camden Group is one of the nation's leading healthcare business advisory firms. The firm provides a broad array of healthcare consulting services in areas ranging from strategic and business planning and financial advisory and compliance, to hospital operations improvement, hospital/physician alignment, clinical integration, bundled payments, and developing accountable care organizations. Since its founding in 1970, The Camden Group has advised more than 1,000 hospitals, medical groups, outpatient facilities, and other healthcare organizations nationwide. For more information, visit us online at .
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Datum: 05.01.2012 - 13:41 Uhr
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