Over the years, technology has significantly transformed the healthcare industry: changes are happening not only in the way these services are consumed, but also how they are delivered and how payments for these services are made. For instance, the sudden rise in patients opting for telehealth services is expected to make the telehealth market worth $185.6 billion by 2026. At the same time, patients today are demanding extreme clarity and transparency in their healthcare bills; in fact, 67% of patients today are willing to explore the cost of care before going to the doctor.
Today, subscription-based healthcare models are picking up steam, and are taking over the fixed, one-time service models that have defined the traditional healthcare system.
Why subscription models are becoming popular in healthcare
The rapid growth and advancement in technology have revamped traditional healthcare models. By offering patients anytime, anywhere access to critical healthcare services by paying a fixed monthly, quarterly or annual fee, patients can get the services they need, when they need it.
Here are five reasons why subscription models are becoming so popular in healthcare:
- Easier and quicker access to healthcare with the flexibility to choose from a network of providers: In contrast to the traditional fee-for-service payment structure where patients pay a fixed amount of money for the healthcare services they receive, subscription models make healthcare far more affordable, accessible, convenient, and transparent. As more and more patients today want to be able to receive healthcare at their own convenience, their own time, and on their own schedule, subscription models allow patients to get easier and quicker access to healthcare with the flexibility to choose services from a network of providers. model. If they are not happy with a particular service or want to switch to another provider, they can easily opt-in or opt-out of services anytime.
- Affordable care: As more and more healthcare consumers opt for affordable healthcare, there is a drastic rise in government healthcare enrollments. Statistics show that more than 8.2 million customers in the US selected a HealthCare.gov plan in the 2nd week of December 2020 alone. But offering affordable healthcare coverage with cost-effective health insurance plans is one of the biggest challenges for modern organizations. Subscription-based healthcare models make access to healthcare quicker and easier. Patients get the flexibility to choose from a network of providers and only pay a minimal fee for the healthcare services they need: right from doctor visits to access to expert healthcare professionals, lab services, prescriptions, and more.
- Proactive health management: Subscription models also enable patients to take a proactive approach to day-to-day health management. Instead of taking the trouble to physically visit a healthcare institution for health concerns that emerge, patients can leverage the services of healthcare providers to monitor and manage their health on a day-to-day basis. Such an approach helps them in maintaining better overall health and also reduces the impact and costs of a sudden health condition.
- Improved healthcare consumer knowledge: Another compelling benefit offered by subscription healthcare models is their ability to improve healthcare consumer knowledge. Therefore, instead of patients having to pay a varying amount of fee for each visit to the doctor, with chances of costs going overboard, subscriptions ensure regular check-ups, routine monitoring, and easy diagnosis of illness that often gets delayed due to ignorance. What’s more, patients can enjoy several additional benefits such as free consultations, discounts on tests and medicines, and more.
- Greater emphasis on overall wellness and alternative health approaches: Subscription-based healthcare models also make it easy for patients to get easy access to wellness centers as well as make the most of alternative health approaches. With the global wellness market valued at over $4.75 trillion, such access enables them to place greater emphasis on overall wellness while offering the benefit of better and more personalized healthcare. Patients can visit their primary care physicians for routine annual check-ups, complex chronic conditions, and everything in between.
What organizations need to ride on the subscription wave
Given how quickly the subscription-based healthcare models are emerging, organizations looking to ride on the subscription wave have a lot of homework to do. They need to:
- Have the flexibility to set up varying product plans: Healthcare organizations looking to make the most of subscription models will need to have the flexibility to setup varying product plans. They will have to provide patients more freedom of selecting a plan of their choice, based on their affordability, services and coverage requirements, medical provider network, and more.
- Ensure accurate taxation calculation: Given how geographically dispersed healthcare clients can be, healthcare organizations will also need to have the strategies and tools in place that allows them to ensure accurate taxation calculation. For every invoice, they would need to capture the required tax information and calculate it in real-time for best and most accurate results.
- Have a process in place for multi-party settlement: Since subscription models comprise several different healthcare service providers and partners as part of a larger ecosystem, there is also the need to have a process in place for multi-party settlement. Organizations must be able to efficiently and cost-effectively settle and manage payments with multiple providers and bring all partners into a single billing ecosystem.
How OneBill can help
For healthcare service providers that struggle with tracking and managing billing and invoicing for multiple complex product and pricing configurations, OneBill provides an array of benefits that can drastically bring down the time and cost of subscription management. Through automatic reconciliation of invoices and payments, OneBill solutions can help enhance the efficiency with which 3rd party agent commissions were calculated and settled.
Our service offering include:
- Configure-Price-Quote (CPQ) module that gives healthcare organizations the flexibility to create various product and pricing plans with unique configurations and tailor them based on individual market and patient needs that are tailored to the local market in which they are sold within. Using CPQ, organizations can
- Configure multiple complex products with varying charge types
- Personalize products for specific customers and create promotions and bundles
- Easily manage all quotes, approvals, and contracts through a single platform – with little or no manual intervention.
- Develop customized quote templates, automate the quote approval process, and deal with quotes and order approvals automatically.
- Billing and Revenue Management Module (BRM) that makes it easy to scale and automate healthcare billing operations and ensure revenue tracking accuracy. Using BRM, healthcare organizations can
- Choose from a wide array of billing methods and provide customers with a billing method that is tailored to their needs: right from standard and flex to on-demand, order-based and more
- Efficiently calculate product usage, apply relevant charges, and accurately and manage invoicing
- Improve tax rate accuracy by applying the correct taxation codes that apply and minimize potential tax audit risk
- Accurately track revenue through using a user-friendly reporting tool and enable categorize revenue based on predetermined codes
- Multi-level Channel Management (MCM) module that brings healthcare partners into one billing ecosystem, thus maximizing their revenue. Using MCM, healthcare service providers can:
- Define the process for sales cycle from lead generation to fulfilment and receive automated commissions based on an agreed set of rules
- Offer different versions of the subscription catalogue to different partners with defined product mixes and price ranges
- Define the process for sales cycle from lead generation to fulfilment and receive automated commissions based on an agreed set of rules
With subscription-based models becoming the future of healthcare, it is time to embrace the trend to make healthcare more accessible, affordable, and patient-centric.
Contact us today to address existing pain points in the healthcare ecosystem, enhance how healthcare services are delivered (and consumed), and meet the growing subscription-based needs of patients.
