As healthcare companies face rising costs, maintaining quality patient care at affordable prices becomes progressively difficult. Rather than automatically raising costs in response to market changes, leaders should consider other methods before making concrete modifications to how the company currently operates.
From making strategic investments to incorporating artificial intelligence in operations, there are many ways companies can maintain care affordability in an ever-changing healthcare sector. To help, 19 Forbes Business Council members share additional steps healthcare companies can take to grapple with rising costs while maintaining quality care for patients.
1. Shift To A Proactive Healthcare Approach
There needs to be a shift from the system’s reactive “sickcare” to one that prioritizes healthcare based on disease remission and prevention. Lifestyle medicine, which emphasizes nutrition, exercise, stress management, sleep and social capital as first-line preventative therapies, should be prioritized in tandem with or before conventional medicines to improve patient outcomes and reduce costs. – Joseph Antoun, L-Nutra, Inc.
2. Adopt A Root-Cause Healing Philosophy
Healthcare companies can lower costs while improving care by shifting from a symptom-chasing model to a root-cause healing one. Instead of overrelying on pharmaceuticals, invest in skilled, holistic practitioners and efficient systems. Cut the waste, not the care. Prevention, precision and empowering patients to stay healthy is the most sustainable, cost-effective strategy. – Irina Logman, Advanced Holistic Center
Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. Do I qualify?
3. Prioritize Financial Literacy
Focus on internal and external financial literacy. One step is to use data to educate patients on cost-effective choices while also investing in preventative care programs. Providers can also streamline administrative systems with AI to cut waste. Transparency, education and smart automation can reduce costs without sacrificing care. – Aleesha Webb, Pioneer Bank
4. Sponsor Interim Leaders
Healthcare companies can better manage rising costs by investing in interim leadership to drive efficiency and innovation without long-term overhead. Interim leaders bring fresh perspectives, streamline operations and implement cost-saving measures, making it possible to maintain quality care while improving affordability. – Jacob Kupietzky, HCT Executive Interim Management & Consulting
5. Finance Technology Upgrades
Healthcare can cut costs and boost care by using AI assistants, smart devices and telehealth services as the glue between digital and in-person care. This enables 24/7 proactive and reactive support, layered service levels with flexible pricing, and timely, data-driven interventions that reduce strain on the system and improve outcomes. It’s smarter care with lower costs. – Calvin Goulding, G8 Education
6. Cut Waste
Slash waste by removing administrative bloat, redundant tests and inefficiencies to curb rising costs. Harness AI to automate prior authorizations, simplify billing and eliminate pharmacy benefit managers who jack up drug prices. These upstream savings unlock downstream benefits, including affordable co-pays, expanded telehealth services and sustained care quality. Start here because it’s practical and puts patients first. – Rohan Sharma, Zenolabs.AI
7. Remove Administrative Inefficiencies
Eliminating administrative inefficiencies that bog down operations is key. This includes taking a fresh look at how patient financial responsibility is communicated. It also involves setting up do-it-yourself patient payments and automating backend reconciliation. Self-service options supported by backend operational automation give patients greater control while also freeing up staff time. – Tom Furr, PatientPay
8. Simplify Current Workflows
Simplifying clinical and operational workflows enhances care quality and lowers costs. Using AI responsibly to reduce inefficiencies and alleviate friction should be top of mind for healthcare systems. Aligning clinical decision support and education closer to the patient’s context will bring patients into the care team, enhance harmonization and strengthen clinical and financial outcomes. – Greg Samios, Wolters Kluwer Health
9. Fund Energy Efficiency Upgrades
It’s well-documented that investing in energy efficiency upgrades, such as geothermal HVAC systems, helps healthcare facilities cut operational costs while enhancing patient comfort and facility resilience. With available tax incentives, these upgrades potentially pay for themselves faster. – Jeff Sprau, Legence
10. Collaborate With Community Health Workers
Engaging community health workers to help members navigate both healthcare and social services has proven ROI for healthcare companies. It also makes care more affordable by helping members utilize social benefits like assistance with co-pays and transportation costs while reducing expensive ER visits and hospital stays. It’s a win-win solution! – Valerie Cerra, GroundGame.Health
11. Integrate Claims Intelligence Into Patient Education Strategy
Having worked with healthcare startups, one overlooked lever is integrating claims intelligence into patient education strategy. Use large language models to analyze claims data and surface patterns in misuse, delays or preventable escalations. Then, turn that insight into proactive content that guides patients toward better decisions. This enables smart content to become care before care is even needed. – Sahil Gandhi, Blushush
12. Prioritize Treatment Options With Sustainable Outcomes
This is a huge issue for obesity treatment, especially managing GLP-1 costs. To make quality care more affordable, consider which treatment combinations will deliver the best, most sustainable outcomes. For obesity care, that means pairing GLP-1s with expert-led lifestyle and behavioral support that includes personalized medication management, nutrition counseling and physical activity. – Scott Paddock, Wondr Health
13. Recognize The Power Of Communication
Healthcare companies need to realize the power of the consumer and be very active in how they communicate and serve them. Many areas of healthcare affordability success are about serving the customer and their needs in a proactive manner. Healthcare is confusing and complex, making the service journey critical and very impactful to overall costs. – John Erwin, Carenet Health
14. Increase Customer Service Quality
As the CEO of Military Caregivers, I recommend that healthcare entities increase the quality of their customer service. Often, consumers can understand that as grocery prices and everyday costs increase, so do expenses for small- and mid-sized businesses. Cutting back should never mean cutting the quality of care. – Olivia Roach, Military Caregivers | Gov Elder-Concierge (2M Confirmed External Followers)
15. Invest In Remote Staffing Solutions
Healthcare companies can invest in remote staffing solutions, like virtual medical assistants and billing specialists, to significantly reduce overhead without compromising service quality. Streamlining operations and reallocating resources to frontline care can lower costs and make patient services more affordable and accessible. – Pranav Dalal, Office Beacon
16. Leverage AI For Early Detection
As an EMBA/MS candidate in Healthcare Leadership at Cornell and CEO of Archer Insights, this is a topic I often discuss. One powerful approach is using AI to detect deadly diseases at the first stage when recovery rates are near 100%. If we can keep people out of hospitals, the costs take care of themselves. It’s a bold view, but one I firmly believe in. – Nitin Khanna, Archer Insights, LLC
17. Form Data-Sharing Partnerships
Leverage strategic data-sharing partnerships. These partnerships allow healthcare providers to collaborate using anonymized patient insights to reduce inefficiencies and redundancies. Smarter use of shared resources means lower costs and more affordable, higher-quality care. – Dmitriy Schwarzburg, Skinly Aesthetics
18. Leverage Predictive Analytics
Leverage predictive analytics to reduce unnecessary procedures and optimize resource allocation. By using data to forecast risk and personalize care plans, healthcare companies can cut costs upstream while improving outcomes, driving both affordability and value-based care. – Hamzah Hussain Bhatti, Half Price Packaging
19. Provide Value-Based Care
To reduce costs while maintaining quality care, healthcare companies can shift to value-based care, focusing on patient outcomes rather than service volume. By emphasizing prevention and chronic disease management and using telemedicine, they can enhance care accessibility, improve patient health and reduce unnecessary costs. This creates a more efficient and affordable healthcare system. – Sahit Muja, Albanian Minerals
Read the full article here
