If you live in the United States, you are more than well aware that Oct. 1 is not only the day that the government may have to shut down, but it is also the day a key part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as “Obamacare,” goes into effect with the opening of healthcare exchanges to provide those without access to insurance a way to obtain it. Without going into the politics of what will be a milestone event, it only seems appropriate on the eve of this historic occasion to share some insights on how the healthcare industry feels about things. In a word, the industry is “conflicted.”
San Mateo, Calif.-based Coupa Software, who provides cloud-based applications for cloud-based applications for finance, has released the results of its 2013 Healthcare Survey of 200 top healthcare professionals across the U.S. Coupa is in a good position to take the temperature of the healthcare industry. One of its offerings, Coupa for Healthcare, is a popular cloud application that healthcare facilities around the world employ to reduce costs and risks unique to healthcare.
The findings of the survey are not surprising in that they show administrative redundancy and unnecessary complexities in public and private healthcare programs are a major source of waste. That said, real food for thought is the somewhat contradictory impressions the healthcare professionals expressed about ACA.
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ACA fears and favorites
The survey was conducted by uSamp (uSamp.com), the Answer Network, online from September 19-23, 2013 on behalf of Coupa. What it found was that 78 percent of healthcare professionals identified spending inefficiencies in their workplace. Top concerns included:
- Wasteful spending (35 percent)
- Insurance mandated process work (32 percent)
- Late physicians (25 percent)
- Useless tests (22 percent)
The drill down into perceptions about the impact of ACA is where it gets fascinating.
Once the ACA is fully enacted, 74 percent of those polled felt there would be positive benefits for patients, including:
- More Americans will have some level of coverage (57 percent)
- Increased preventative care services (36 percent)
- Lower hospital bills for patients (21 percent)
- Reduced healthcare spending for taxpayers (19 percent)
However, 56 percent oppose most, if not all, of the proposals in the law. Ninety-three percent felt that there could be negative outcomes from the law, including:
- Quality of health insurance policies will suffer (53 percent)
- Access and effectiveness of care will go down (51 percent)
- Law is overly complicated (49 percent)
- Insurance exchanges will be poorly managed (42 percent)
Despite the perceived complexities of the new law, 66 percent believe some inefficiencies will be eliminated in hospitals and clinics as a direct result of the Affordable Care Act. These included:
- Unnecessary ER visits (35 percent)
- Staffing turnover (19 percent)
- Paper prescriptions (19 percent)
- Claims processing (17 percent)
“Simplifying our nation’s healthcare system is certainly a step in the right direction,” said Amit Duvedi, vice president of business strategy, Coupa Software. “The administrative complexity of our healthcare system raises costs for healthcare providers and hampers their ability to provide excellent care to their patients. Implementing the ACA will force providers to do more with less as new enrollees sign up for coverage. Coupa for Healthcare helps these providers identify cost reduction opportunities and streamline operations thus allowing more time to focus on patient care.”
In many ways the feelings of the healthcare professionals are reflective of the deep divides roiling the political landscape here in the U.S.
On the one hand, the general impression of the professionals is that ACA is a bad thing. Yet, when asked about individual aspects of it, they find things that they like and feel are important. The pros think it will decrease costs and increase coverage, but fear that the coverage itself will suffer as the insurance companies reduce benefits in order to compete with the exchanges and that this will have diminish the quality of care.
Consumer polling is equally conflicted. The public is skeptical of having a new broad-reaching government program in place, but likes things like extending the time children can be on a parent’s policy, getting rid of preexisting conditions as a reason to not provider coverage, and the inclusion of more preventive care as part of coverage, just to name a few major ones.
How all of this shakes out over the long-term is anyone’s guess. The rhetoric surrounding this is very familiar to when Social Security and Medicare were introduced in the U.S., and decades later those entitlement programs still get juices flowing.
One thing we do know is that two clichés apply—“the devil is in the details,” and it is always about “whose ox is getting gored.” Tomorrow is shaping up as quite the day, and making predictions about outcomes, political as well as medical, is risky business. What it does mean is that taking a snap shot as to where the professionals as well as consumers stand Oct. 1, 2014 is going to be really interesting.
Edited by
Alisen Downey
