The Why Behind So Many Healthcare Payment Buys
Healthcare spending has grown from $75 billion in 1970, as measured by Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of National Health Expenditure Data, to as much as $3.5 trillion in 2018. Spending has been growing at double-digit percentages through the past few years, far outpacing economic growth.Just as technology and platforms have changed commerce, they are changing healthcare as well, refashioning the landscape and ways in which health data flows, how it is used and, at the other end of the spectrum, how we pay for care as it is delivered without breaking the bank.Pain points abound, of course, from making sense of paper statements that come in the mail and run dozens of pages to paying for visits, treatments and prescriptions as they are rendered, to providers chasing down payments long after they are due. It’s not going to get any easier, either, as healthcare spending may reach $6 trillion by 2027, as noted by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.