Joe Peluso, administrator at Aestique Surgical Center in Greensburg, Pa., joined Becker's to discuss what he is worried about in healthcare in the next 10 years, including declining reimbursement and prescription prices.
Editor's note: This response was edited lightly for length and clarity.
Joe Peluso: Healthcare in the next decade is no winners or losers, just survivors. Healthcare is not a one-size-fits-all. The U.S. healthcare system has been criticized for being inefficient, expensive, highly regulated and that it does not ensure equitable access to care. Despite the hard work and dedication of providers, clinicians, front-line workers and staff, there has been no measurable impact on improved quality outcomes or lowered costs overall in our healthcare system.
In this era of increased complexity in healthcare, leadership needs to address systemic issues such as inefficiencies, improve the patient experiences, address fragmented care delivery and set overall strategy through a lens of authenticity, restoring trust from key stakeholders to achieve an organization's full potential for success. The pandemic has exposed major weaknesses in the healthcare industry's performance, profitability and cash flow that require changes in the care delivery models. Providers are struggling to hurdle the ever-changing barriers, dealing with healthcare quality, access, supply chain disruptions, labor shortages and rising costs, while revenues continue to decline.
Significant risks that threaten the sustainability and ability for healthcare organizations to provide care include declining reimbursement from payers with increased operating costs and decreased resources to meet future healthcare demands of an aging and sicker population, with an eroding workforce. Private insurers and equity firms will continue to diversify, and hospitals and providers will continue to consolidate into large integrated delivery systems, creating monopolies which include insurers and providers. Big Pharma will continue to exert its pricing power for prescriptions, insurers will continue to increase premiums and physicians will continue to lose autonomy.
These initiatives will continue to escalate the cost of healthcare by eventually limiting patient choice and decreasing competition leading to higher healthcare delivery costs and inflation. This situation is unsustainable, and if we do not develop and support new delivery models, this will lead to socialized medicine (national health insurance) that will ration services with an increased dependence on government intervention to control providers, payers, medical intervention, technology, patient choice and access.
The future for provider survival in the healthcare industry is dependent upon utilizing technology and innovative strategies to deliver expanded service lines covering entire care episodes in appropriate care settings for patient-centric services with better outcomes, more convenience, greater access and less cost.