Change is the New Normal

Regardless of who ends up in the White House after the current election cycle ends, it seems clear that health insurers will need to continue to address market change. New healthcare business models, including value-based benefits and payments, ACOs, Medicare and Medicaid expansion and the move towards public and private exchanges continue to stress the industry’s legacy technology infrastructure like never before. At the same time, consumers are demanding innovative new products and services, and access to information that is similar to what they have come to expect from every other industry. While there may be some debate as to which models will be most prominent during the next administration, one thing is clear: we won’t be returning to the one-size-fits-all healthcare models of yesterday.

Insurers are also increasingly focused on finding ways to manage and reduce their out-of-control administrative costs, and many are starting by taking a hard look at the technology that is driving their businesses. Many of these market leaders are consolidating their technology environments and eliminating the expensive, hard-to-maintain satellite systems and workarounds that have been negatively impacting their ability to operate high-performance organizations.

The result is many health insurers working to leverage modern technology to drive new levels of agility, efficiency and transparency, and to deliver the new options that their customers are demanding, all while driving down administrative costs.

Health plans that want to be successful in this new, consumer-centric healthcare marketplace must transform themselves, leveraging modern technology, to enable their organizations to rapidly address the changes that will continue to drive the market for the foreseeable future.