Health

2016 will be a year of firsts for players within healthcare as the industry adapts to the main forces driving the New Health Economy: the rise of consumerism, the focus on value, downward pressure on costs, technological innovation and the impact of new entrants.

Until recently, consumerism in the U.S. healthcare industry has moved slowly. However, several converging forces are likely to change the situation soon and result in a more dynamic market. Higher deductibles and copayments, greater transparency into provider performance and costs, and the rise of network narrowing and provider-led health plans are prodding patients to become more involved in healthcare decision making than ever before.

Responding to the billions of advertising dollars being spent to promote prescription products, physicians at the Interim Meeting of the American Medical Association (AMA) adopted new policy aimed at driving solutions to make prescription drugs more affordable.

Despite all the additional resources in navigators that were deployed in the last open enrollment and even though major health insurers quadrupled their Hispanic-dedicated media allocation from 3% in 2010 to 14% in 2014, a new analysis by ethnicity performed by Santiago Solutions Group (SSG) revealed that the Hispanic enrollment rate still trailed far behind that of any other group even in the best performing states.