Top Challenges Facing Healthcare Organizations in 2017

Three of the top challenges facing healthcare organizations in 2017 are:

1) The transition from volume-based healthcare to value-based healthcare

2) Rising costs

3) Talent shortages

These are three separate issues but they are all very much connected. Let’s start with the transition from volume-based healthcare to value-based healthcare. In the world of healthcare, quality always counts. However, as we move toward value-based healthcare, quality care becomes more important than ever because now it affects revenues.

If the quality of care fails to meet certain standards, healthcare organizations will suffer penalties from Medicare and Medicaid. This means they could deliver patient care and incur the costs to deliver that care, but they won’t get paid for that care. This is one of the places where the challenge of transitioning from volume-based healthcare to value-based healthcare adds to the challenge of rising costs.

Value-based healthcare requires that healthcare organizations get the best talent possible, because better talent will deliver better quality patient care. This includes both clinical and non-clinical talent.

Last but not least is the challenge of talent shortages. The talent shortage has been a long-standing problem, and it is a problem that will continue to get worse as time goes on. Physician vacancies bring with them lost revenues of about $1 million per year, per vacancy. The shortage of non-physician talent, both clinical and nonclinical, increases costs with overtime and higher priced temporary help.

Lost revenues and increased labor costs can force some healthcare organizations to hire candidates that are not necessarily the best qualified. This brings us back to the challenge of transitioning from volume-based to value based where top talent is more important than ever.

Healthcare organizations should look to financing pension plans as part of their overall solution to meet these challenges, and here’s why:

1) Lifetime pension plans appeal to almost everyone. AMA studies reveal that retirement is the number one financial concern for all US physicians. Moreover, it is the top financial concern for all Americans.

2) Pension plans have a proven history as a powerful recruitment tool and can help healthcare organizations attract top quality talent. The top quality talent will deliver better patient care, which financially increases the bottom line in the world of value-based healthcare, and also addresses the challenge of rising costs.

3) The pension plan vesting periods will tie the talent you need to the organization for the long-term. In addition, healthcare organizations will save tens of millions of dollars in turnover costs, which further help address the challenge of rising costs and talent shortages.

4) The first year cost of financing the pension plan for 100 employees is less than the turnover cost of only one employee, and is a huge step in the right direction to meet the challenge of rising costs.

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