With lockdowns seemingly a thing of the past and mask regimes reduced, it might be tempting to believe COVID was all a bad dream. However, this is far from the case. The pandemic has inevitably changed the trajectory of the healthcare industry, among numerous others. From supply chain issues to staffing to care provision to healthcare financing and more, no area of the sphere has remained untouched. Add that to the wider issues of rising inflation rates, growing international instability, and increased demands from service users, to stay ahead in the healthcare industry, it is becoming vital to stay abridge the healthcare trends.
Factors Shaping the New Healthcare Financing Trends
If you feel the world is moving faster than ever before, you’re not alone. This is a sentiment shared by many. Although there is some literal truth to this, what we are actually experiencing is more than a decade of intense technological advancement, coupled with socio-economic and geopolitical factors, and industry-specific movements that are changing healthcare and healthcare financing for the future. Let’s take a look.
Industry-wide developments
Technology advancement—from the beginning of mobile internet to 5G communications, the tech industry has come on leaps and bounds. Although consumer tech dominates, medical and healthcare technology is also advancing with experimental and promising treatments being discovered and some becoming more accessible. This has meant that not only do researchers have to discover innovative ways to fund science, but patients also must seek medical financing solutions to fund their own healthcare.
Future of Lending in 2022: Trends & Predictions Coronavirus pandemic—putting a strain on the healthcare industry as a whole, the pandemic shone light upon the weaker areas of many worldwide healthcare services, indicating that almost no country has got it quite ‘right’ just yet. At the same time, it spurred increased investments, which now, as we move further into 2022, will become clearer as to how effectively they could impact healthcare solutions.
Inflation rates—the US is close to a 40-year-high in terms of inflation with rates in May noted at 8.6%. This indicates greater pressures on the current market and will heavily impact investment decisions for the foreseeable future.
Customer Experience in Digital Lending: 5 Onboarding Best Practices Increased service-user expectations—almost 60% of financial service users now expect more from their provider in terms of digital service, but just 27% succeed in this task, according to consumers. This indicates a significant gap in user demand and end results, which could be effectively harnessed to drive consumer engagement.
Have you already felt the effects of inflation on your business?
Emerging trends in healthcare finance
Growing insurance gaps—from being uninsured to underinsured and in medical debt, the US healthcare system and the country’s population continue to face challenges in providing access to healthcare. In 2020, over 15% of patients put off treatments, at the same time population health, including mental health, worsened during this time. These factors continue to add to the healthcare crisis, which has led new companies, such as HES to develop more efficient loan management software to help solve the problem.
Continuing negative margins—healthcare margins remain down ~49% marking a continuous drop from the third month running. This has dashed expectations of a post-covid recovery and could leave providers seeking more effective cost and medical financing solutions.
Healthcare spending—while overall spending is increasing, many wonder if it is enough to bolster damaged healthcare systems. At the same time, many note that private financing delivers options to receive care quicker. This may indicate an increased interest in private healthcare financing and systems for the future.
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Top Healthcare Financing Trends to Expect in the Next Years
A staggering 100 million people in the US have healthcare debt. And that’s the US alone. Financial, sociological, political and more factors have delivered significant instability to the global economy and there’s no doubt that this is an exceptionally changing time for decision-makers across all industries.
That said, challenging times may also represent opportunity. So which trends should healthcare finance professionals look out for this coming year?
Automated payments
Why Embedded Payments in Lending Are a Gamechanger When it comes to bill-paying, direct debits and others, the general rule of thumb is; that the simpler, the better. However, in practice, many companies fail to do so because of international money transfer problems and needing to go to a physical branch, among others. This is why automated payments should make the top of any healthcare financing provider’s list of projects/companies to fund.
Fully digital processes
KYC and AML Processes or How Automation Improves Compliance in Lending Even KYC and AML can be completed digitally, so it’s no surprise when consumers become frustrated at non-digital services. Transforming from a traditional organization to a digital one is not a walk in the park and requires effort to transform the business into a more contemporary institution, including e-signatures, digital AML/KYC, and full medical loan software to name a few.
AI scoring and underwriting
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technology (ML) are advancing at a rapid pace. In order for a company to keep up with the trend, it’s vital to stay on track of all available data. As this is almost impossible for a human to complete, this is where technology helps. AI scoring and underwriting models assess loan applications in a smarter, more innovative way to deliver lower-risk results and quickly for the company.
Buy now and pay later
BNPL as a Part of Embedded Finance: What You Need to Do When Everybody Is a Lender With companies such as Klarna and Amazon’s analog growing in popularity, the pay-as-you-go purchase model is on the rise—even in the healthcare financing industry. Many people prefer to pay for their care in more affordable installments as opposed to large lump sums and this is a trend that’s set to grow in the near future.
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Next Steps into the Future of Medical Software Financing and Its Trends
HES FinTech and VoPay Partnership: Lending Powered with Leading-Edge Payment Processing It’s a rocky road ahead, not just for the healthcare industry but for many others. As the world continues to face instability, it’s likely that people will turn to secure solutions such as healthcare financing to ensure their well-being. At the same time, this puts pressure on providers to deliver efficient lending software development solutions that answer the needs of the population efficiently. To ensure the best medical software financing solution, it’s essential to seek out a trusted provider that has experience in developing tools for healthcare providers. This will allow your company the advantage of hitting the ground running when it comes to securing not only viability but success in a rapidly changing market.
Interested in medical loan software platform? Get in touch with our team to explore HES LoanBox.
