Globalizing Obamacare
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, popularly termed "Obamacare," is great news for healthcare in America, but is not so great for the insurance industry which has consistently denied coverage to risky patients in order to reduce premiums and stay profitable. The clause of Obamacare that mandates coverage of patients with pre-existing conditions especially puts the insurance industry at a financial risk since all the risky uninsured patients with serious or pre-existing health conditions have to be insured.
Whichever insurance company covers these "risky" people will have serious financial problems for doing so because if that company raises its premiums, it may or may not stay competitive in the market. Surely, this has already been anticipated by the insurance industry and they may already have an established understanding among themselves to raise premiums across the board. But even jacking up premiums will not keep them safe because newer, more efficient companies can crop up and challenge the established companies with lower premiums. Are lower premiums possible for newer companies? You bet. There is a lot of money to be saved by running a company efficiently. There are lot of old insurance companies that still follow outdated, inefficient protocol, and perform time-consuming manual monitoring and management. These companies have only maintained their profits up until now by eliminating risky patients and finding as many loopholes as possible to avoid payouts. Now the game is different. The organizations have to improve how they operate in order to stay competitive. Inefficient methodology must give way to new technology and automated management systems. It is a very difficult transition, and one that may be impossible for some of the old insurance giants. However, it will be much easier for new companies to start off with latest technologies and change their modes of operation as they do not have age-old, inefficient systems established in place or veteran employees and managers who are reluctant to adopt new changes.
In the near future, we may see some new insurance companies offering significantly lower premiums and competing with established ones. We will see the older companies either collapsing or reorganizing to form efficient and sleeker operations. We will see more mergers and acquisitions as their corporate strategy changes. Businesses will attempt to merge with companies that have complementary strengths in order to minimize their weaknesses. We will also see an increase in outsourced jobs as another strategy these companies will employ to reduce their overhead cost. This will be the immediate effect of the Obamacare when it goes live.
The second phase of this sea of changes will be the insurance companies pressuring hospitals to reduce their exorbitant healthcare costs by operating more efficiently and embracing automation. In hospitals, you will begin to see automation, in terms of integrated computer systems and robotic technology, being used to reduce the cost of treating inpatients, especially chronic patients. Currently, more than 75% of all healthcare costs in the US are devoted to treating chronic patients. We will begin to see more efficient uses for electronic medical records to maintain patient records, and computerized medicine with online checkups and diagnoses to reduce expensive doctor visits. You will also begin to see implementation of automated preventive care methods so that companies can reduce long-term costs.
This new online system helps healthcare industry in the United States by reducing the number of annual doctor visits, eliminating the wait for a doctor’s appointment, getting a diagnosis in a matter of minutes without leaving home, and substantially lowering healthcare costs. The implications for elderly patients, comprising a significant population in many countries, are obvious. Moreover patients can get several opinions at the same time. You have heard of getting a second opinion – how about getting a third, fourth, or fifth. In this case, using automated online diagnosis, patients from around the world can obtain another objective, qualified diagnosis.
In many cities, the scarcity of doctors forces patients to wait months for an appointment. With this system in place, patients benefit because they get immediate diagnosis and doctors benefit because they are not spending as much time on routine colds or cuts and scrapes.
These massive changes will give birth to a host of new innovative software and technologies that will help online diagnosis and automated inpatient care. You will begin to see insurance companies training patients to monitor their own health via physical devices and online tools. You will begin to see an influx of various innovative products in the market that will automatically monitor patients' health on a regular basis, and the insurance company will encourage and reward the use of these products as well.
The ultimate goal, and probably the best and only survival strategy for the insurance companies, is to use as little doctor/hospital resources as possible, and adopt automation and technology wherever they can to reduce cost. Robotic surgery and nanotechnology and other preventive care methods will get a boost in research funding. Any invention that will improve efficiency, reduce costs, and promote health will save insurance companies a lot of money and will flourish. A healthy community is a gold mine for them, and a healthy nation will earn them billions.
You may be wondering why the above discussed automations did not happen all these years. Well, automation is very sensitive to price. As investment in research and development to design and implement automation is huge, automation happens only if the savings are justifiable. The fact is, automation is an ongoing process, a part of our ongoing technological evolution. Automation has been happening in all areas of healthcare, but very slowly, as the increase in premium was moderate so far. Insurance companies kept the rise in premium as low as possible by denying care to the pre-existing conditions. Now, with this new change in policy, the jump in premium will be felt by all of us and that gives added incentive for the industry to embrace automation much more quickly to survive the competition.
Although automation in healthcare will happen quicker than ever before, there could be some time gap as industry prepares for it. During this period there could be some increased activity in “medical tourism” which is already expanding. Insurance companies may even support and encourage people to get expensive procedures done overseas. However, this is only a temporary phenomenon to fill the gap before automation kicks in. As automation begins to establish, medical tourism will slowly dwindle. Why travel to a far away country when you can get the same procedure done here with an automated machine which is much more reliable and secure than a human? Even the offshore hospitals could be using similar machines. There will be race between medical tourism and automation for a short period. It will be very interesting to see how these two will compete and influence each other. How quickly this race will start and end will depend on how quickly automation establishes in healthcare system.
This fundamental shift in the insurance industry's attitude from "denying coverage to risky patients" to "embracing automation to cover risky patients", will hit the food industry hard as well. If people are being monitored by insurance companies via automated devices, as invasive as it sounds, people will be penalized for eating unhealthy foods. Even restaurants will not be able to afford to feed their customers drastically unhealthy food any more. Slowly but surely, restaurant patrons and grocery shoppers will begin to demand "monitor-friendly" food to save on their premiums. "If you eat fat, your premiums will be fatter" will become the new mantra for insurance companies.
So ultimately, where is Obamacare leading us? To a healthier nation, of course. In the future, health will be encouraged and promoted through the use of sophisticated health technology; all in the name of ‘reducing healthcare cost’, a healthy nation will emerge and prosper.
What is the global impact of Obamacare?
Obamacare that would jump start automation in healthcare will have a profound global impact. Using automated online diagnosis, patients from around the world can obtain another objective, qualified diagnosis. This online diagnosis potentially caters to a population of several billion. The substantial revenue earned funds more research there by increasing the quality of healthcare.
The other great benefit of an online diagnosis is that once established it initiates mass-production of diagnostic tools. Later on, as the system spreads around the world, it adds more sophisticated diagnostics as they became economically viable. Establishing online diagnosis in the market creates demand for a multitude of businesses to produce the diagnostic tools.
The automation of the healthcare industry affects the flow of medical information. Hospitals around the world will have instant access to every new breakthrough, diagnosis, and treatment because healthcare will exist on a connected global network. The machines will instantly assimilate new information, as it is available, keeping the network automatically updated. If a new epidemic hits a region of the world, its symptoms and needed treatment become instantly available to the global healthcare system, so the whole world benefits from this instant flow of information.
As automation in the healthcare industry evolves further, all the money now spent on routine checkups and meaningless paper work goes into intellectual research, we will quickly attain a higher health standard in a short period. Letting machines take over more and more of our routine jobs frees us to stop working so hard and start working smarter – the only move assured to take us into that safer future.
- R.S. Amblee
Author "The Art of Looking into the Future: The Five Principles of Technological Evolution"
Whichever insurance company covers these "risky" people will have serious financial problems for doing so because if that company raises its premiums, it may or may not stay competitive in the market. Surely, this has already been anticipated by the insurance industry and they may already have an established understanding among themselves to raise premiums across the board. But even jacking up premiums will not keep them safe because newer, more efficient companies can crop up and challenge the established companies with lower premiums. Are lower premiums possible for newer companies? You bet. There is a lot of money to be saved by running a company efficiently. There are lot of old insurance companies that still follow outdated, inefficient protocol, and perform time-consuming manual monitoring and management. These companies have only maintained their profits up until now by eliminating risky patients and finding as many loopholes as possible to avoid payouts. Now the game is different. The organizations have to improve how they operate in order to stay competitive. Inefficient methodology must give way to new technology and automated management systems. It is a very difficult transition, and one that may be impossible for some of the old insurance giants. However, it will be much easier for new companies to start off with latest technologies and change their modes of operation as they do not have age-old, inefficient systems established in place or veteran employees and managers who are reluctant to adopt new changes.
In the near future, we may see some new insurance companies offering significantly lower premiums and competing with established ones. We will see the older companies either collapsing or reorganizing to form efficient and sleeker operations. We will see more mergers and acquisitions as their corporate strategy changes. Businesses will attempt to merge with companies that have complementary strengths in order to minimize their weaknesses. We will also see an increase in outsourced jobs as another strategy these companies will employ to reduce their overhead cost. This will be the immediate effect of the Obamacare when it goes live.
The second phase of this sea of changes will be the insurance companies pressuring hospitals to reduce their exorbitant healthcare costs by operating more efficiently and embracing automation. In hospitals, you will begin to see automation, in terms of integrated computer systems and robotic technology, being used to reduce the cost of treating inpatients, especially chronic patients. Currently, more than 75% of all healthcare costs in the US are devoted to treating chronic patients. We will begin to see more efficient uses for electronic medical records to maintain patient records, and computerized medicine with online checkups and diagnoses to reduce expensive doctor visits. You will also begin to see implementation of automated preventive care methods so that companies can reduce long-term costs.
This new online system helps healthcare industry in the United States by reducing the number of annual doctor visits, eliminating the wait for a doctor’s appointment, getting a diagnosis in a matter of minutes without leaving home, and substantially lowering healthcare costs. The implications for elderly patients, comprising a significant population in many countries, are obvious. Moreover patients can get several opinions at the same time. You have heard of getting a second opinion – how about getting a third, fourth, or fifth. In this case, using automated online diagnosis, patients from around the world can obtain another objective, qualified diagnosis.
In many cities, the scarcity of doctors forces patients to wait months for an appointment. With this system in place, patients benefit because they get immediate diagnosis and doctors benefit because they are not spending as much time on routine colds or cuts and scrapes.
These massive changes will give birth to a host of new innovative software and technologies that will help online diagnosis and automated inpatient care. You will begin to see insurance companies training patients to monitor their own health via physical devices and online tools. You will begin to see an influx of various innovative products in the market that will automatically monitor patients' health on a regular basis, and the insurance company will encourage and reward the use of these products as well.
The ultimate goal, and probably the best and only survival strategy for the insurance companies, is to use as little doctor/hospital resources as possible, and adopt automation and technology wherever they can to reduce cost. Robotic surgery and nanotechnology and other preventive care methods will get a boost in research funding. Any invention that will improve efficiency, reduce costs, and promote health will save insurance companies a lot of money and will flourish. A healthy community is a gold mine for them, and a healthy nation will earn them billions.
You may be wondering why the above discussed automations did not happen all these years. Well, automation is very sensitive to price. As investment in research and development to design and implement automation is huge, automation happens only if the savings are justifiable. The fact is, automation is an ongoing process, a part of our ongoing technological evolution. Automation has been happening in all areas of healthcare, but very slowly, as the increase in premium was moderate so far. Insurance companies kept the rise in premium as low as possible by denying care to the pre-existing conditions. Now, with this new change in policy, the jump in premium will be felt by all of us and that gives added incentive for the industry to embrace automation much more quickly to survive the competition.
Although automation in healthcare will happen quicker than ever before, there could be some time gap as industry prepares for it. During this period there could be some increased activity in “medical tourism” which is already expanding. Insurance companies may even support and encourage people to get expensive procedures done overseas. However, this is only a temporary phenomenon to fill the gap before automation kicks in. As automation begins to establish, medical tourism will slowly dwindle. Why travel to a far away country when you can get the same procedure done here with an automated machine which is much more reliable and secure than a human? Even the offshore hospitals could be using similar machines. There will be race between medical tourism and automation for a short period. It will be very interesting to see how these two will compete and influence each other. How quickly this race will start and end will depend on how quickly automation establishes in healthcare system.
This fundamental shift in the insurance industry's attitude from "denying coverage to risky patients" to "embracing automation to cover risky patients", will hit the food industry hard as well. If people are being monitored by insurance companies via automated devices, as invasive as it sounds, people will be penalized for eating unhealthy foods. Even restaurants will not be able to afford to feed their customers drastically unhealthy food any more. Slowly but surely, restaurant patrons and grocery shoppers will begin to demand "monitor-friendly" food to save on their premiums. "If you eat fat, your premiums will be fatter" will become the new mantra for insurance companies.
So ultimately, where is Obamacare leading us? To a healthier nation, of course. In the future, health will be encouraged and promoted through the use of sophisticated health technology; all in the name of ‘reducing healthcare cost’, a healthy nation will emerge and prosper.
What is the global impact of Obamacare?
Obamacare that would jump start automation in healthcare will have a profound global impact. Using automated online diagnosis, patients from around the world can obtain another objective, qualified diagnosis. This online diagnosis potentially caters to a population of several billion. The substantial revenue earned funds more research there by increasing the quality of healthcare.
The other great benefit of an online diagnosis is that once established it initiates mass-production of diagnostic tools. Later on, as the system spreads around the world, it adds more sophisticated diagnostics as they became economically viable. Establishing online diagnosis in the market creates demand for a multitude of businesses to produce the diagnostic tools.
The automation of the healthcare industry affects the flow of medical information. Hospitals around the world will have instant access to every new breakthrough, diagnosis, and treatment because healthcare will exist on a connected global network. The machines will instantly assimilate new information, as it is available, keeping the network automatically updated. If a new epidemic hits a region of the world, its symptoms and needed treatment become instantly available to the global healthcare system, so the whole world benefits from this instant flow of information.
As automation in the healthcare industry evolves further, all the money now spent on routine checkups and meaningless paper work goes into intellectual research, we will quickly attain a higher health standard in a short period. Letting machines take over more and more of our routine jobs frees us to stop working so hard and start working smarter – the only move assured to take us into that safer future.
- R.S. Amblee
Author "The Art of Looking into the Future: The Five Principles of Technological Evolution"
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