All sectors, including health insurance, are continually developing new technology and solutions. However, health insurance has been a mainstay of the American healthcare system for more than a century, and with that long history comes long-standing business practices. Some health plans have used the same technological systems for decades, but health plans of choice understand that to meet and exceed member expectations in the changing healthcare landscape, they must embrace innovation.
There are solutions and new technology available to payer executives that will increase efficiency, reduce costs, and generate insights that will improve the quality and delivery of care.
When considering technology options, payers must keep in mind that linked, modern technology must be at the center of your health plan’s operations. Payers must look beyond stand-alone solutions to adopt technology at scale, making each department more efficient and smarter, to move to the future of work. Payers need skills and experience they can count on — they need a partner — to reach that aim.
Healthcare organizations can construct their solutions or buy stand-alone solutions from suppliers if they don’t have a partner. These routes, however, may present new or unanticipated obstacles. Internal resources are drained by the DIY option: instead of relying on the knowledge of healthcare technology businesses to guide them through the process, internal teams must learn each new solution on their own. Similarly, if executive leadership relies on new vendors for each new solution, implementation timeframes will lag, putting a strain on internal resources and delaying the desired outcomes. It can result in a revolving door of vendors, each working on their own set of problems.
Working with a partner that understands your business needs and can accompany you on this journey — because moving toward a more integrated and smarter future of work is unquestionably a journey — results in a better experience and more long-term success.
The importance of selecting the appropriate partner cannot be overstated. Here are five questions payers should ask themselves and the health tech companies with which they are considering collaborating.
It takes a long time to transform a company into a technology-driven one. It will take patience and foresight. Wherever you are on that trip, the ideal partner will be waiting for you. This could mean getting involved from the beginning and helping to define the project’s guiding ideas and aims from the ground up. It could also mean jumping in to help bring a long-running project to a successful conclusion, ensuring that your technology implementation project’s objective and vision are met.
The roadmap process should ideally include clear phases and criteria to assist you to understand your options, costs, and return on investment (ROI), and it should be tailored to your specific needs so you can create a plan that will lead to a successful digital transformation.
The whole goal of having a partner is to have someone who can assist you in scaling innovative technologies within your company. Is the health-tech firm capable of meeting your needs and providing a solution? From usage monitoring to claims processing to network management and beyond, the solutions must be tailored to your specific requirements and goals.
It’s also vital to think about if their solutions fit into your present workflow to avoid causing problems for your staff and in-network providers. It won’t help you achieve long-term success if it only shifts the responsibility from one stakeholder to another.
The only constant in healthcare, like in life, is changing. You don’t want to invest in new solutions that will become obsolete in a few years. As a result, players must seek a partner who can provide solutions that will function in the present ecosystem while also continuing to develop and expand its impact.
The healthcare technology business you hire must offer solutions that will meet the current and future needs of your workers, members, and network providers.
You may read more about why healthcare has to embrace an ecosystem perspective, but in a nutshell, healthcare as a whole, as well as the various organizations that make up the industry, must function as a coherent, integrated ecosystem to develop. Because providers use different electronic medical record systems, health plans utilize a variety of point solutions, and workers are distributed among office buildings and home offices, this is easier said than done.
The proper partner will be able to interact with the many systems your network providers already use, draw data from other solutions, and link employees through a simple interface. When your organization’s technology is organized as an ecosystem, each component works together to benefit the overall.
Interoperability improves as the solutions combine and data is unlocked.
Because of the amount of data, security requirements, and regulatory requirements, healthcare is fundamentally different from other businesses. Payers require a technology partner who can not only supply the best solution but also guide staff and providers through the necessary changes to enjoy the benefits of rapidly evolving technology.
