For Patients
What top trends affected your healthcare this past year? And what is coming up in 2018?
Here, I’ve done some deep diving into the rabbit hole that is healthcare in America today.
Let’s take a look at 2017’s Top SIX healthcare trends and my predictions for 2018.
We’ll come back to them one year from now and marvel together at the uncanny accuracy of your humble scribe.
- Tele-health
In 2017:
Tele-health services—getting your care over the phone or the internet went mainstream in 2017 with many insurers and healthcare systems offering such services.
In 2018:
This will become far more common. Your doctor or nurse practitioner will be spending more time on the keyboard and less time seeing patients. They won’t begin to have time to see you. You’ll either see a “doctor-by-wire” or end up in the emergency room.
Down the road
These services won’t have a copay at first, but come this time next year—they will.
- The option of getting your healthcare in exchange for cash will still be very limited.
In 2017:
The number of doctors offering cash-pay healthcare stayed steady despite a significant increase in patient demand.
In 2018:
This won’t change in 2018, so if you find a cash-pay practice that has an opening, you may want to jump.
Down the road:
When doctors and nurse practitioners begin to feel the impact of MACRA in 2019, the supply of cash-pay practices will jump.
- Generics will get better
In 2017:
People finally figured out it was cheaper to pay for generic prescriptions in cash rather than run them through your insurance.
In 2018:
This will be an even bigger trend as patients begin to request that clinicians separate out expensive combination medications into their individual drugs, each of which is much cheaper as a generic.
Down the road:
If Amazon follows through on it’s promise to sell prescription medications across the country—it will change the face of healthcare.
- Managed-Care Medicaid will get worse
In 2017:
With the exception of lavishly funded California, private Medicaid providers lost money, restricted benefits and begged for more resources from their state governments.
In 2018:
If you’re covered by managed care Medicaid, routine healthcare will be even harder to get—even if you live in California.
You’ll still be able to go to the ER, though.
Down the road:
Stay healthy—as costs go up and spending holds steady these private organizations are going to take their profit out of your care.
- Medicare Advantage plans change with the times
In 2017:
The number, types and costs of medicare advantage plans available to you stayed pretty much the same, although in some rural counties they began to decline.
In 2018:
That’s not going to change.
Down the road:
Look for choice to decrease and out-of-pocket costs to increase as fewer new Medicare advantage plans are started, more are consolidated under a few insurers, and program funding increases slow.
- Trick Question: Who do you actually see at the “doctor’s” office?
In 2017:
You were much more likely to see a nurse practitioner or a physicians assistant for an office visit (despite paying the full co-pay).
In 2018
This will happen more often
Down the road:
You don’t even want to know.
Bonus Prediction
In 2017 you will have a moment of connection with some healthcare provider somewhere in some situation just when you need it the most.
Through being unexpected, you will be all the more appreciative.
And as touched as you feel, you’ll have no idea that you will have touched that healthcare provider even more.