How healthcare consumerism is driving provider revenue growth

Aligning with consumerism in healthcare

Healthcare providers have to adjust to a new way of thinking to approach growth. One way providers can adapt is to borrow from other more consumer-focused industries.

"Healthcare organizations can consider how to adopt strategies from retail or hospitality, for example, to enhance consumer loyalty and engagement, so it could look like personalized experiences or proactive communication," Janisch explained.

Meeting the needs of the consumer will be key to a successful growth strategy. This means creating products and services that prioritize consumer affordability and convenience, according to Deloitte experts. After all, Deloitte has found that cost is the top reason why consumers skip medical care, while other access challenges, including long wait times and limited office hours, also ranked high.

"Consumer affordability continues to be a top challenge as out-of-pocket costs outpace overall healthcare spending, which creates financial strain for consumers and pressure on margins for health plans and systems," Janisch said.

Developing products and services also needs to be tailored to specific market conditions and competitive environments, according to Deloitte. Healthcare providers may think about improving brand loyalty, refining product and service offerings and creating new products and services that appeal to their specific communities.

Healthcare providers will need to identify what consumers want. For example, data from Deloitte shows that consumers are willing to switch providers to access virtual health services, Janish reported.

"If their provider doesn't offer virtual health, they might switch providers, and we think those numbers are going to grow," she stated.

Direct-to-consumer platforms also present a challenge to more traditional brick-and-mortar offices in light of these emerging consumer needs. These online applications deliver the convenience and digital opportunities consumers are seeking.

Leveraging technology for healthcare consumerism

For these reasons, technology investments will primarily be around core functions, like the EHR system or patient portals, versus digital tools and more transformative technology, such as AI.

"If we look at technology investments, the quick ones that come to mind are patient portals, virtual visits and digital monitoring tools," Janisch elaborated. "Those are the ones that are critical right now to meet consumer demand for convenience and affordability. Also, these tools can reduce the friction that consumers are experiencing and, on the positive side, enhance their access to care similar to online banking and retail experiences."

"So, the more healthcare can adopt best practices from those other industries, the more they're going to set themselves apart in attracting and retaining their healthcare consumer," she continued.

That's not to say healthcare providers are not interested in adopting transformative technologies like AI. Health plans, in particular, are looking to these types of technology investments, with a focus on generative AI. However, health systems are leaning more toward strengthening core legacy business technologies.

"Where we're seeing AI is claims processing, fraud detection and personalized treatment plans," Janisch said. "Health systems are exploring gen AI to automate administrative tasks, enable virtual nursing and create more time for direct patient care, and those are some examples on both the plan and provider side."

However, Janisch stressed that AI is "a tool in the toolbox along with a lot of other" technologies.

Healthcare providers will need to be cautious about implementing technologies like generative AI as they seek to increase consumer trust. Previous data from Deloitte shows that 80% of consumers want to know when their provider is using technology to make decisions.

"Health systems and plans need to be thoughtful in how they approach consumerism, especially teaming with clinicians and getting the clinician's point of view," Janisch said. "But also they can take data from their consumers. What do people want? What are people interested in? Look to see what's important because technology is changing every day, and our expectations of how we interact with technology and the experiences that we have with it are changing."

"Getting the viewpoint from your consumers, as well as clinicians, is going to be really important to move the needle on this," she said.

Jacqueline LaPointe is a graduate of Brandeis University and King's College London. She has been writing about healthcare finance and revenue cycle management since 2016.