Since many employers pay for health care for their workers, the ever-increasing costs of that fringe benefit are putting the squeeze on and have been for years.
Enter wellness programs, analytics, risk-sharing contracts and many other tools that have been developed in the last few years to pull on the reins of runaway health costs and change their course.
PBN’s recent Summit on Health Care chewed on these topics and more, and if there is one conclusion to be reached, it is that there is no one way to make health care cost less, at least not at the moment.
Accountable care organizations are seen by many as the future of medicine, but despite encouraging results from many such endeavors, they are not widespread enough to really make a difference.
Analytics that show the least-expensive, highest-quality providers offers another solution, but there is still not enough transparency to take advantage of the promise of big data.
Health care continues to be a problem in search of an answer. But the important thing is that we all want that solution.