Less fragmentation for better adherence
Need to see a physical therapist or other outpatient clinician? You know that you’ll have to arrive 15 minutes early to fill out forms with information including your insurance plan, medical history, medications, allergies. Americans continuously face the frustration of repeatedly completing the same forms. Over and over again, you handwrite the details, wondering why the healthcare world remains in the age of telegraphs, leaded gasoline, card catalogs, the Beach Boys.
We started Outpatient Inc to address such fragmentation and other inefficiencies. We’re helping to consolidate personal and family health information to institute more continuity in healthcare.
The recent spate of mergers and acquisitions creates the promise of more vertical integration. Such a streamlining could improve the patient and consumer experience, particularly if better analytics are sprinkled into the mix.
Recent acquisitions brought together complementary companies.
Roche’s acquisition of Flatiron Health and CVS’s acquisition of Aetna are two examples of complementary parts of the supply chain joining together to try to create a more seamless experience for customers. Managed correctly, this should result in better health outcomes and customer satisfaction. In the case of Roche and CVS, a less fragmented system should improve medication and prescription adherence, which is a $337 billion dollar problem today.
Consumers stand to gain from both of these transactions. At Roche, large and powerful shared datasets and analytics will be available to pharmaceutical manufacturers, researchers, doctors and patients via a modern EHR. Lifecycle tracking, medication adherence, supply and demand balancing should all improve.
Similarly, at CVS, sales of pharmaceuticals will have a much tighter symbiosis with the paying entities. Overall costs of pharmaceuticals should decrease. Consumers should experience more convenience and less confusion.
We applaud Roche, CVS and other companies for taking these bold steps. We hope the execution as combined entities matches the potential. All Americans would benefit from a simplified healthcare system.
As the Beach Boys once sang, “Wouldn’t it be nice?”
