Consumer-focused healthcare

Top healthcare payer headlines of 2014
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By Brian Eastwood

Often lost amid the politicization of the Affordable Care Act is its underlying aim to give individual patients more control over the care they receive. The waived co-pay for annual physicals and other "wellness" screenings illustrates this point--care that intends to keep people healthy shouldn't cost them anything beyond their insurance premiums.

For payers, the concept of consumer-focused healthcare means driving users to be more empowered and, therefore, accountable. Insurers accomplish this with better technology, improved transparency, more value-based care and support for caregivers and elderly patients as they make increasingly difficult, complicated and expensive care decisions.

It's no surprise, then, that learning to thrive in a consumer-focused world dominated the agenda at this year's AHIP Institute annual conference. Attendees heard from firms in a number of industries that successfully connect with their customers. If insurers want to remain competitive in 2015 and beyond, they would be wise to heed their words.