CHS’ Wayne Smith: Healthcare consumerism’s effects will take ‘2 to 3 years’
High-deductible health plans and the need to avoid expensive sites of care are driving the move towards consumerism in healthcare. What kind of impact it will have, however, won’t be immediately apparent, according to Wayne Smith, CEO of Community Health Systems.
Speaking at a panel on industry issues hosted by the Nashville Health Care Council, Smith and others said hospitals still have reasons to be optimistic about their future prospects—with an aging population requiring their care—even while admissions decline as more patients head to urgent care clinics and other lower-cost settings.
“Everybody in health care is talking about consumerism, connectivity and how we can do a better job in that respect,” Smith said, according to the Nashville Business Journal. “It may be moving relatively fast but it will take a while for it to really kick in. It may be two or three years before [we] see the impact of all that.”
Joshua Raskin, senior research analyst at Nephron Research LLC, guessed the impact would create some winners and losers, shrinking profit margins for certain providers.
“It’s hard to imagine transparency helping anyone from a pricing perspective,” Raskin said. “Individuals are going to be armed with the actual data around cost and quality and you’re going to see market share shifts. I think that’s pretty obvious and that will be good for some folks and bad for others.”
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John joined TriMed in 2016, focusing on healthcare policy and regulation. After graduating from Columbia College Chicago, he worked at FM News Chicago and Rivet News Radio, and worked on the state government and politics beat for the Illinois Radio Network. Outside of work, you may find him adding to his never-ending graphic novel collection.