As a company operating in the health and benefits space, we keep close tabs on interesting headlines and trends. Paytient is focused on helping people better access and afford the care they need, and a large part of that mission involves education.
To help you stay up to date with all of the latest and greatest news in the space, we round up noteworthy headlines on a monthly basis. Here’s your recap of some of the most interesting content to come across our desks over the past few weeks.
What Is Next for Your Well-Being Strategy in 2022?
Rethinking your well-being strategies is no small feat. And while a number of companies have prioritized employee wellness in the wake of the Great Resignation, not all of those companies have succeeded.
This article from the WTW team explores how companies can refresh their strategies, walking readers through the steps they can take to conduct a thorough review of everything from partners and plans to employee feedback to start the year off on the right foot. Those careful examinations should include assessing the program against current objectives, revisiting goals and success metrics with leadership, and refreshing the strategy based on those findings.
Read more from WTW.
Morgan Stanley at Work Unveils Inaugural State of the Workplace Financial Benefits Study
In releasing its inaugural study on workplace financial benefits, Morgan Stanley explored the attitudes of employees and employers related to those benefits. The study underscored a number of major trends happening in workplaces, including that HR executives are placing a priority on rethinking workplace financial benefits.
The study suggests that employers and employees alike agree that companies could be doing more in this area, and 91% of workers report they could feel more likely to stay with their employers if they offered financial benefits that met their needs. Meanwhile, 95% of HR executives say they plan to reevaluate their organization’s financial benefits packages in 2022.
Read more from Morgan Stanley.
Inpatient-Only List Reinstatement Offers Opportunities to Hospitals
When the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced it was walking back the phaseout of its inpatient-only (IPO) list, it was a big win for hospitals. The IPO list includes about 300 procedures that CMS only reimburses if they occur in an inpatient setting (i.e., a hospital operating room).
Instead of losing potential patients to ambulatory surgery centers, hospitals can continue offering many procedures that keep them in the black. This also puts pressure on insurance companies to relax their site of service rules, which should lead to more procedures in hospital operating rooms. The only thing left is for hospitals to determine how they will collect the member portion of payments for these services.
Read more on the Paytient blog.
$44B Raised Globally in Health Innovation, Doubling Year Over Year
The new year is underway, which makes it a great time to reflect back on 2021 in terms of health innovation investing. StartUp Health did a deep dive on activity in the space last year, reporting a massive $44 billion in health innovation funding in 2021. That’s a far cry from 2011, when there was about $2 billion invested in health tech. It also represented a significant leap over 2020, which saw about $22 billion in funding for digital health startups.
More than 20 companies went public last year, the article notes, with a wave of massive deals in the U.S., China, India, and the U.K. pushing things forward at an astronomical rate. The authors suggest this is far from a spike — investing in this space is likely to only increase in the coming years.
Read more from StartUp Health.
Health Systems Could Invest in Buy Now, Pay Later Options
According to new research from the Center for Connected Medicine, 74% of health system executives are likely to invest in technologies that offer patients better access and convenience. With major online retailers like Amazon investing in flexible payment options for larger purchases, it’s only a matter of time before these trends gain steam in the healthcare world.
A 2021 report from Amazon Web Services suggests that 43% of U.S. consumers would be willing to use a flexible payment option like buy now, pay later to make high-value purchases, and a 2020 report indicates that 36% of patients would like payment plan options. A solution like Paytient meets this growing demand head-on, providing members with a way to pay for any healthcare cost over a series of payments — always without any interest or fees.
Read more from Insider Intelligence.
How Employers Can Help Advance Health Equity in the Workplace
McKinsey took a long look at health equity in America, concluding that there are significant disparities among Americans when it comes to access to healthcare and health outcomes. This survey of large U.S. employers concluded that these gaps exist in a number of workplaces, preventing all employees from having a just and fair opportunity to achieve their peak health.
Although employer-sponsored health insurance is a great benefit to workers, the question becomes how companies can help all employees by offering other benefits that increase access to healthcare. McKinsey concluded that companies should focus on three areas: expanding benefits that help employees meet basic needs; ensuring benefits are easy to access, understand, and use; changing workplace culture to destigmatize receiving care.
Read more from McKinsey.
