We were at the AHIP conference last week, and as shown in our earlier posts, we learneda lot at this year’s event. The health insurance industry is at a point of tremendous evolution, and there are a lot of factors to consider. Here are a few of the key themes that we took away from this year’s event:
Health Insurance Exchange: Health Insurance Exchange was the early winner in terms of themes that dominated conversation. On the first day of AHIP, many attendees opted to attend the Exchange Conference exclusively. Many of the items learned will help health plans navigate the increasingly interconnected healthcare environment that we will experience in the days to come. Here is an interesting article that came out during the conference on how health insurance exchanges require an ambitious infrastructure.
The Rise of Healthcare Consumerism: As mentioned under our Utilization Management post, the changing role of patients within healthcare is causing a lot of changes to business processes and the traditional way of doing business in the healthcare industry. Patients are being invited into the design of their care, and there are cost efficiencies that result in terms of reduced readmissions and the like. Terms like “mass personaliziation” that have been big in retail for years are now making their way into conversations here at AHIP. Here are some of the sessions that addressed this trend:
- Understanding the Consumers’ Decision Process in Purchasing Health Insurance
- Healthcare Transformation: The Movement Towards Individuals; Personalized Medicine: Its Value Today and in the Future
- Mass Personalization: Optimizing Consumer Engagements for Improved Health Outcomes
Impact of Healthcare Reform: This is a big topic anywhere you turn in the healthcare industry, or mainstream news in general, these days. It goes without saying that this was a hot topic at this year’s conference. More specifically, data is becoming electronic and healthcare organizations are becoming increasingly interconnected under healthcare reform measures. This has generated ongoing conversation around how to prepare a health insurance business for these changes. Some of the break-out sessions that dealt with this topic include:
- Re-Engineering the Health Plan Business Model to Succeed in a Post-Reform Market
- Four Imperatives for Post Reform Healthcare
Accountable Care Organizations: Conversations about Accountable Care is alive in both the provider and health plan industries these days. Health Plans are making sense of the accountable care model and the changes that will need to be made to their business model as a result of this healthcare reform measure are being considered. There were many education events on the topic of ACO. They include:
- Creating Sustainable Accountable Care Models; Population Health: The Reality Behind Healthcare Reform
- Delivery Model Transformation: How will Business Models change with ACOs?
Creating Efficiency Through Health IT: As predicted in our earlier post about the rewards found in the pain that is ICD-10, there was a lot of conversation about transforming an organization with “next generation” technology as a result of mandated reform measures. Our own customer, BCBS of Massachusetts, summed this up very well in a video earlier this year. These themes were addressed in:
- ICD-10: More than a Regulatory Requirement, An Opportunity for Business Improvement
- Leveraging Health IT: Maximizing Your Capabilities to Create Efficiencies
