Posted by Mark Brousseau
The banking industry has been an integral part of the healthcare world for decades, providing back-end financial administration services to health plans, ranging from processing premium payments and the financial part of the claims payments through medical lockbox services.
For banks, growing opportunities exist in the healthcare market, and revenue potential is apparent, according to Aite Group. To this end, banks are developing new products and services by applying business rules from existing products and services to cater to the healthcare space. With increased consumerism in the healthcare space since the beginning of the consumer-directed healthcare (CDH) movement, banks have been leaning on the core strengths and capabilities they have mastered in the retail environment in order to develop new product strategies, Aite Group says.
“Banks are in the unique position to be able to leverage their existing relationships with various stakeholders, including health plans, clearinghouses, healthcare providers, and healthcare vendors,” says Kunal Pandya, senior analyst with Aite Group. “Although banks’ overall focus in targeting the healthcare market is similar across the board, their approach to targeting specific areas varies widely based on their understanding of the space, relationships in the space, and overall corporate strategy.”
What do you think?
Showing posts with label CDH. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CDH. Show all posts
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Friday, March 13, 2009
Few Americans Using PHRs
Posted by Mark Brousseau
Consumer demand for accessing personal health records (PHR) online is now at more than 70 million Americans, according to Cybercitizen Health v8.0, the latest consumer study and strategic advisory service from pharmaceutical and healthcare market research company Manhattan Research.
Despite significant interest in this type of service, only 7 million U.S. adults actually use PHRs.
Compelling offerings from vendors ranging from Google, WebMD, and Microsoft to multiple insurers and employers have sparked buzz around PHR in the past year. But for average consumers not motivated by a serious illness, significant barriers such as privacy concerns, lack of understanding, and doubts to PHR efficiency hinder adoption.
“Despite the rapidly increasing supply of PHR platforms, consumer adoption of PHRs is unlikely to show significant growth in the absence of major physician participation,” said Erika S. Fishman, Director of Research at Manhattan Research. "Education and awareness building will be critical in establishing the need for a PHR in the mind of American consumers. In a time when our country has not made health IT and electronic medical records a priority, it is understandable why consumers may not see the value in putting in the effort to keep a PHR on their own, unless they are highly motivated to do so because of an illness."
What do you think? Post your comments below.
Consumer demand for accessing personal health records (PHR) online is now at more than 70 million Americans, according to Cybercitizen Health v8.0, the latest consumer study and strategic advisory service from pharmaceutical and healthcare market research company Manhattan Research.
Despite significant interest in this type of service, only 7 million U.S. adults actually use PHRs.
Compelling offerings from vendors ranging from Google, WebMD, and Microsoft to multiple insurers and employers have sparked buzz around PHR in the past year. But for average consumers not motivated by a serious illness, significant barriers such as privacy concerns, lack of understanding, and doubts to PHR efficiency hinder adoption.
“Despite the rapidly increasing supply of PHR platforms, consumer adoption of PHRs is unlikely to show significant growth in the absence of major physician participation,” said Erika S. Fishman, Director of Research at Manhattan Research. "Education and awareness building will be critical in establishing the need for a PHR in the mind of American consumers. In a time when our country has not made health IT and electronic medical records a priority, it is understandable why consumers may not see the value in putting in the effort to keep a PHR on their own, unless they are highly motivated to do so because of an illness."
What do you think? Post your comments below.
Banks See Healthcare Opportunity
By Mark Brousseau
Why do banks want to be at the table in the discussion about healthcare automation? Because it’s a good business to be in, Al Briand, division head, BNY Mellon Treasury Services, said today at the Seventh National Medical Banking Summit in Nashville, TN. “The reality is that it boils down to the business case being there for the healthcare transaction model,” Briand told attendees. “Now, we’re going to investigate whether we can play an even bigger role beyond transaction processing.”
Briand noted that BNY Mellon has deemed healthcare as a growth market from a business and strategy perspective. “The opportunity is there to invest,” he said, noting common elements of need underlie the traditional bank cash and payments business and that of healthcare transaction support. “The synergies of healthcare and treasury management element provide servicing efficiencies.”
Briand said standardization is the key to unlocking the power of technologies such as those for medical banking. “Standards allow technology to be leveraged in a very valuable way,” he said. “Standardization is really the key to accelerating the progress of medical banking and addressing the complexity in the healthcare and banking areas. A lot of different parties need to be involved.”
What do you think? Post your comments below.
Why do banks want to be at the table in the discussion about healthcare automation? Because it’s a good business to be in, Al Briand, division head, BNY Mellon Treasury Services, said today at the Seventh National Medical Banking Summit in Nashville, TN. “The reality is that it boils down to the business case being there for the healthcare transaction model,” Briand told attendees. “Now, we’re going to investigate whether we can play an even bigger role beyond transaction processing.”
Briand noted that BNY Mellon has deemed healthcare as a growth market from a business and strategy perspective. “The opportunity is there to invest,” he said, noting common elements of need underlie the traditional bank cash and payments business and that of healthcare transaction support. “The synergies of healthcare and treasury management element provide servicing efficiencies.”
Briand said standardization is the key to unlocking the power of technologies such as those for medical banking. “Standards allow technology to be leveraged in a very valuable way,” he said. “Standardization is really the key to accelerating the progress of medical banking and addressing the complexity in the healthcare and banking areas. A lot of different parties need to be involved.”
What do you think? Post your comments below.
Stimulus Sparks High-Tech Opportunities
By Mark Brousseau
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), recently signed into law by President Obama, provides welcome news to technology suppliers who are facing a 0.1% 2009 U.S. growth rate, new research from IDC's Industry Insights Companies, reveals.
"With all the uncertainty surrounding the specifics of the new economic stimulus package, one thing is certain – there will be a large amount of government money flowing towards technology spending," said Meredith Whalen, Group Vice President and General Manager of IDC's Vertical Market Business Units. "This new government money will flow to both the private sector and directly to federal, state, and local government."
Included in the $787 billion ARRA package is approximately $20 billion in funding for healthcare IT, including incentive payments to physicians who implement and use eligible electronic medical records systems under the conditions laid out in the law.
"The approximately $20 billion in ARRA funding allocated to healthcare IT investment will have a positive impact and will begin the transformational process the U.S. healthcare industry so desperately needs to remain viable and competitive," said Health Industry Insights' Program Directors for Healthcare Provider IT research, Lynne A. Dunbrack and Marc Holland. "That said, even if implementation proceeds as intended, a number of issues still loom."
Health Industry Insights believes the combination of near-term stimulus funding for patient care, coupled with significant long term incentives and investments in new core health IT infrastructure will accelerate the move toward digital patient information. New Medicare and Medicaid stimulus money will ease cost pressures for many providers, while direct incentives to physicians and hospitals should ensure aggressive implementation of new patient information systems starting in 2011. Between now and 2011, expect significant new spending on standards development and core federal infrastructure.
Industry Insights analysts believe it will be imperative for the vendor community to be both aggressive and agile in their strategy to capture this newly addressable market. This once-in-a-lifetime flood of new technology money requires a new way of finding and following opportunities. Success will not come from traditional business development via relationships and RFPs. While some of these new monies will be allocated via grants and accelerated acquisitions contracts, there will be new ways of engaging with the Government.
"Technology monies will not necessarily be identified as such, but as an element of new and urgent government initiatives," said Teresa Bozzelli, COO and Managing Director, Government Insights. She added, "Vendors must understand when and how to upsell existing contracts when expediency is critical. The vendors must also offer new engagement models to the government, where reward is directly tied to the results achieved against the promise of the economic recovery designed within the stimulus package."
What do you think? Post your comments below.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), recently signed into law by President Obama, provides welcome news to technology suppliers who are facing a 0.1% 2009 U.S. growth rate, new research from IDC's Industry Insights Companies, reveals.
"With all the uncertainty surrounding the specifics of the new economic stimulus package, one thing is certain – there will be a large amount of government money flowing towards technology spending," said Meredith Whalen, Group Vice President and General Manager of IDC's Vertical Market Business Units. "This new government money will flow to both the private sector and directly to federal, state, and local government."
Included in the $787 billion ARRA package is approximately $20 billion in funding for healthcare IT, including incentive payments to physicians who implement and use eligible electronic medical records systems under the conditions laid out in the law.
"The approximately $20 billion in ARRA funding allocated to healthcare IT investment will have a positive impact and will begin the transformational process the U.S. healthcare industry so desperately needs to remain viable and competitive," said Health Industry Insights' Program Directors for Healthcare Provider IT research, Lynne A. Dunbrack and Marc Holland. "That said, even if implementation proceeds as intended, a number of issues still loom."
Health Industry Insights believes the combination of near-term stimulus funding for patient care, coupled with significant long term incentives and investments in new core health IT infrastructure will accelerate the move toward digital patient information. New Medicare and Medicaid stimulus money will ease cost pressures for many providers, while direct incentives to physicians and hospitals should ensure aggressive implementation of new patient information systems starting in 2011. Between now and 2011, expect significant new spending on standards development and core federal infrastructure.
Industry Insights analysts believe it will be imperative for the vendor community to be both aggressive and agile in their strategy to capture this newly addressable market. This once-in-a-lifetime flood of new technology money requires a new way of finding and following opportunities. Success will not come from traditional business development via relationships and RFPs. While some of these new monies will be allocated via grants and accelerated acquisitions contracts, there will be new ways of engaging with the Government.
"Technology monies will not necessarily be identified as such, but as an element of new and urgent government initiatives," said Teresa Bozzelli, COO and Managing Director, Government Insights. She added, "Vendors must understand when and how to upsell existing contracts when expediency is critical. The vendors must also offer new engagement models to the government, where reward is directly tied to the results achieved against the promise of the economic recovery designed within the stimulus package."
What do you think? Post your comments below.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
The CDH Paradigm Shift
By Mark Brousseau
The move to Consumer Directed Healthcare (CDH) plans is a game-changing event in medical banking, Stuart Hanson (stuart.hanson@53.com), vice president, Healthcare Solutions, Fifth Third Bank, said this afternoon during a presentation at the Seventh National Medical Banking Institute.
Hanson noted that CDH plans grew by 43 percent in 2008, with consumers spending an eye-popping $250 billion on out of pocket healthcare expenses (cash, check, credit, debit and automated clearing house). As a result of these trends, more than 20 percent of healthcare providers’ revenue will come directly from patients, Hanson said. Moreover, the impact of consumer-directed healthcare is only starting to be felt, and there is a building wave of demand behind it, he added.
“This turns the revenue collection model on its side,” Hanson said. “To manage this paradigm shift, and minimize the negative financial impact of CDH growth, processors will need new technologies, tools and processes. In a CDH world, providers must re-engineer their processes to more effectively capture, track and manage patient debt,” Hanson said, noting that most provides are challenged by outdated systems and limited electronic and paper connections for real-time reporting and processing.
Against this backdrop, Hanson believes that banks are well-positioned to help providers deal with the shift to CDH plans through retail lockbox, wholesale lockbox, and remote deposit capture services.
What do you think? Post your comments below.
The move to Consumer Directed Healthcare (CDH) plans is a game-changing event in medical banking, Stuart Hanson (stuart.hanson@53.com), vice president, Healthcare Solutions, Fifth Third Bank, said this afternoon during a presentation at the Seventh National Medical Banking Institute.
Hanson noted that CDH plans grew by 43 percent in 2008, with consumers spending an eye-popping $250 billion on out of pocket healthcare expenses (cash, check, credit, debit and automated clearing house). As a result of these trends, more than 20 percent of healthcare providers’ revenue will come directly from patients, Hanson said. Moreover, the impact of consumer-directed healthcare is only starting to be felt, and there is a building wave of demand behind it, he added.
“This turns the revenue collection model on its side,” Hanson said. “To manage this paradigm shift, and minimize the negative financial impact of CDH growth, processors will need new technologies, tools and processes. In a CDH world, providers must re-engineer their processes to more effectively capture, track and manage patient debt,” Hanson said, noting that most provides are challenged by outdated systems and limited electronic and paper connections for real-time reporting and processing.
Against this backdrop, Hanson believes that banks are well-positioned to help providers deal with the shift to CDH plans through retail lockbox, wholesale lockbox, and remote deposit capture services.
What do you think? Post your comments below.
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