If 2015 was the year of change for the healthcare industry; then 2016 will become the year a healthcare practice adapts to the change. The big news in 2015 was the kick-in of most of the Obama-Care laws. In 2016, penalties for not elected coverage increases and more people will elect to buy coverage. While the numbers are all over the place; some will pay more for coverage, some a lot more and some will pay about the same. But the really big news is how many go onto MCR roles this year and how many new jobs in the healthcare sector will be added to accommodate coverage.

Even as more and more patients enter the “covered” roles, through Obama-care, MCD or MCR the ER stats are as high as ever, the cost of healthcare has explosively risen and total practice incomes have decreased. How can that be?

As more and more baby boomers enter their 65 and up years, they bring with them the same chronic diseases the age group has been dealing with for years, but now the volume has increased. Cost has risen, reimbursements decreased and more and more baby boomer doctors are leaving their practices to be replaced by in large by employed physicians who value their off time and benefits as much or more than their salary.

• Demands for greater protection of patient data will be an IT demand even as more and more large banks of data are hacked.
• Practices seeking new ways to increase their revenue look to new product lines to enhance profits.
• More and more stand- alone practices will sell to large hospital organizations who will also sell their own insurance like MCR advantage plans to better control the aging population.
• Adjunct employees like chiropractors, physical therapists, social workers and visiting nurses will add to the employee roles.
• The IT C office may well become populated by a combination of business/computer geeks. (no offense to geeks everywhere)
• Competition for paying patients will dominate the market.
• Baby boomers believing they can live forever pay outrageous fees for appearing like they can.
• Compliance and patient confidentiality confronts the reality of interoperability and compromises with unintentional consequences are accepted for the sake of portable and available anywhere patient records.

Sounds like a fun year doesn’t it? Need some help wading through the realities and decisions that must be made? Call Medical Management Services.