Covid-19 will have a lasting transformative impact on how health care is delivered in the U.S. The crisis has expedited the movement of care from hospitals and clinics to the community and home via remote technology, as providers build their telehealth and home-based care management capabilities. At the same time, the federal government has relaxed rules and regulations around clinical integration in an effort to ease coordination among regional organizations.
While the nation struggles to address the immediate challenges brought on by Covid-19, those providers who will survive, and even thrive, after the pandemic ebbs, will be the ones who leverage their Covid-19 response strategies and the relaxed regulatory environment to achieve their longer-term strategic imperatives.
As providers quickly build on their telehealth and remote-monitoring capabilities, they must develop stronger partnerships with each other, the payers, and community groups; these efforts will be foundational to their clinical integration and network development strategies. How can your efforts in telehealth come together for a clinical integration strategy? How should you be re-evaluating your networks, as we expect to see an increase in Medicaid patients? How might your network change, as small provider groups could be forced into early retirement or may close as a result of Covid-19?
