As the healthcare debate rages on, the stakes are high for the winners and losers under the ACA. Just one group remains above the fray — healthcare consultants.
They won under the ACA, will win if it is repealed and continue to win at every step along the way. Healthcare reform is a complete "bonanza for health-care consultants," according to a recent column from Politico.
Hospital executives are familiar with consultants' pitches offering expertise on EHR optimization, maximizing quality metrics, navigating mergers and acquisitions, surviving the transition from volume to value, and keeping up with Medicare payment updates. One hospital executive — Ruth Krystopolski, senior vice president of population health at Charlotte, N.C.-based Atrium Health — told Politico she received eight to 10 pitches a day from consultants after the 2016 election. Another unnamed executive put that number much higher, at 100 to 120 email pitches a day.
Consultants are not unique to healthcare, nor are they new, the report notes. However, the complexity, uncertainty and potential around healthcare reform have proven an ideal breeding ground for consultancy, with no standards for the profession. While there is no right way to be a consultant, there are also many wrong ways. Executives have found some consultants feed them the same advice as their competitors, while others simply add to the cost and complexity of delivering care. The good ones are able to help deliver unique solutions that make care simpler, higher in quality and more cost efficient.
It's the good ones — and the thousands of pages of new regulations — that keep the business going, according to Politico. Read the full column here.
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