Aug 9
2020
Healthcare Payers Address Immediate and Long-Term Impacts of COVID-19
By William Flood, MD, MS, chief medical officer/Eviti, NantHealth.
The COVID-19 crisis has created a perfect storm of challenges for payers as they adapt to a new normal that continues to evolve. It’s also opened up a host of opportunities for creating positive change that will enable providers and payers to run smarter businesses and provide more quality care for patients.
During a recent webinar, healthcare payers participated in interactive polling and unanimously agreed that COVID-19 has significantly changed the healthcare landscape, altering the routine day-to-day management of care and the operations that happen around it, including medical plans.
Here are some of the key aspects payers are tackling as they move forward:
Shifts in Plan Membership
The economic downturn caused by the pandemic has led to significant increases in unemployment, As healthcare coverage is frequently tied to employment, this leads to significant increase in the number of uninsured. According to a May 2020 Kaiser Family Foundation study, 45 million Americas were unemployed at that time, and it’s estimated that about 27 million are uninsured because of that loss.
While we won’t have exact numbers on how much membership has changed until open enrollment periods begin, likely in January 2021, we do know that this increase in unemployment has driven a shift from private to public plans.
It escalates the steady decline in private plans that we’ve seen for the past thirty years, putting increased pressure on government-sponsored plans like Medicare and Medicaid and providing opportunity for insurers who have not already done so to enter these markets. During a time of economic challenge, this requires reevaluation of current processes to construct more valuable and affordable approaches for stakeholders: payers, patients, and providers.