When you hear the word “empowerment,” it’s code for “You’re on your own, pal.”
Health care leaders are starting to recognize that consumers are becoming a major decision-making force. Let’s be clear at the outset: The rise of the consumer is not the panacea that will solve all our problems. It is a reality that hospitals and health systems must respond to. For the foreseeable future, consumers will pay more for health care and be more involved in picking plans, providers and individual treatment options. This development means significant financial consequences for consumers (unlike almost any other developed country).
Providers need to understand the financial predicament of the typical American health consumer and the responses consumers are making in this changing environment. At the same time, with a new congress and a political season of primaries and posturing just around the corner, pundits, politicians and plutocrats need to recognize where consumers are as voters, plan members, employees, patients and family members.
