The Future of Healthcare Depends on Digital Collaboration

The healthcare industry’s fee-for-service model is crumbling. As medical providers move to a population health model, they are looking for ways to collaborate and securely share data with partner organizations for coordinated care delivery.

In this whitepaper, we will discuss the identity challenges of strong B2B collaboration and how cloud identity solves these problems.

The Future of Healthcare Depends on Digital Collaboration. Does Your IAM Strategy Support It?

The healthcare model in the US is changing. Healthcare demands are increasing as the baby boomer population retires and switches from employer-sponsored healthcare coverage to entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid. According to the Census Bureau, “By 2029, when the last round of boomers reaches retirement age, the number of Americans 65 or older will climb to more than 71 million, up from about 41 million in 2011.” As demand for healthcare is increasing, supply is decreasing. Available funds for entitlement programs like Medicaid and Medicare are declining. According to the Social Security and Medicare Board of Trustees, Medicare Part A, which helps fund hospital expenses, home services for patients after hospital stays, skilled nursing facilities, and hospice care for elderly and disabled people, will expire in 2028.

The healthcare system in the US is under enormous pressure. More and more medical expenses are being pushed onto healthcare providers, who are already operating with very thin margins today. As their financial burden increases, medical providers are turning to the new way of doing healthcare: the population health model. MACRA (the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act) went into effect in April 2015 and is a new model for paying for the treatment of Medicare patients. It’s designed to control Medicare spending by financially incentivizing physicians. Under MACRA, doctors are paid in part based on the quality and effectiveness of the care they prov