Primary care and rehab practices must adopt ops-tech and services to stay viable

All attributes of the triple aim of care (cost, experience, and health outcomes) continue to decline as life expectancy in the US has sunk to 1996 levels, six in 10 have a chronic condition, and healthcare inflation is two times core inflation. In part, the outcomes have been poor due to our bias toward acute care in reaction to critical illness rather than proactive care addressing health and wellness. Primary care and rehab will be central to helping people return to health in a post-acute care setting and maintain a state of health.

A key opportunity for reversing the decline in the triple aim of care can be delivered by enhancing the technology and services support for primary care and rehab. Yet technology and service penetration across the healthcare provider ecosystem of primary care, acute care, post-acute care, and rehabilitation services has been uneven.

The health system and hospital-hosted acute care have attracted the most attention, while primary care and rehab have been largely ignored. However, a resurgence in primary care over the last couple of years, driven by the adoption of technologies (telehealth) and the pandemic and manifested by digital-health-enabled primary care, has improved access, reduced costs, and expanded specializations, including women’s health and mental health. The resurgence was achieved with relatively low investment in operational technologies and services support. Similarly, rehabilitation (rehab) facilities across specializations continue to be underserved by technology and services.

HFS Research interacted with 105 US primary care and rehab leaders to understand their realities around setting priorities, adopting technology, and enabling services. HFS leveraged its primary research to collaborate with UST and develop a perspective reflecting lessons and opportunities for primary care and rehab. This unique study revealed six illuminating and actionable insights for the next wave of healthcare opportunities in the underserved primary care and rehab segments of the healthcare ecosystem.

• Health outcomes: Over 65% of providers across practice sizes and types care more about their patients’ outcomes than any other measure of success, prioritizing health outcomes and patient retention over other attributes of their practice.
• Patient engagement: Preventing disease and maintaining health is not a point-in-time transaction but rather a sustained journey. Providers are leaning in to drive engagement to improve patient outcomes.
• Operational technology adoption: Key operational technology adoption, such as electronic health records (EHR) systems and revenue cycle management (RCM) systems, is about 50% of that of acute care adoption, suggesting opportunities to enhance care delivery.
• Disruption of insurance: There is a parity of payments between insurance reimbursements and out-of-pocket payments, indicating the need for process reengineering to address the new reality of shifting payment mechanisms.
• Underserved services: Providers have outsourced customer service and IT, but there are opportunities to source more services, including RCM, that are not core to providers to reduce operational burdens and distractions.
• Technology misfit: Despite the proliferation of technologies, most providers do not think it meets their needs or their patients’ needs.

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