Demand for convenient care drives new healthcare partnerships

Partnerships—including joint ventures, non-exclusive arrangements and telehealth alliances—are becoming more common as a result of the “convenient care” revolution, according to NEJM Catalyst.

Authors Pushpa Raja, MD, of UCLA; and Ateev Mehrotra, MD, MPH, of Harvard, explained that the first types of these convenient care options are retail clinics, urgent care centers, telehealth kiosks and online video visits. With new technology, these options are able to offer patients extended hours, minimal wait times, and low out-of-pocket costs for low-acuity conditions.

The demand for these convenient care options is highest among urban, higher-income, younger and healthier demographics. While larger healthcare systems have an interest to break into this market, they often lack the infrastructure to do so solo, leading to partnerships with those who can provide simple, low-acuity care. This is especially true if the healthcare system attracts the demographic of patient that demands this new type of care delivery.

Partnerships between health systems and providers of convenient care come in many shapes and sizes, wrote Raja and Mehrotra, and include:

• Non-exclusive agreements: Institutions outside the healthcare sector, such as CVS, have been popular choices for convenient-care partnerships due to their built-in customer base and relatively low financial risk for health systems.
• Joint ventures: Under these arrangements, every partner has a stake, appealing to healthcare providers who are willing to make a bigger capital investment in exchange for more ownership and equal representation on boards of directors.
• Leased-space arrangements: Health systems operate convenient-care clinics themselves, but within a retail space. “The drawback of such an arrangement is that, again, health systems often lack the infrastructure to operate such a clinic; for example, more than half of hospital-operated clinics within Walmart locations have since closed,” wrote Raja and Mehrotra.
• Telemedicine partnerships: These can include healthcare providers paying a fee for services and technology in exchange for branding and referrals

“Convenient-care partnerships won’t work for every health system,” concluded Raja and Mehrotra. “Those that value direct control of quality, reimbursement, and staff culture over lower operational costs may continue to create convenient-care options in-house or partner with outsiders only for technology infrastructure. Others may wait to assess how well existing partnerships work before joining the fray. But as convenience becomes a core value for many patients, health systems should at least become familiar with the partnership landscape and its growing options.”