While the COVID-19 pandemic clearly disrupted the healthcare industry, in some ways it taught us - and even proved that - necessity is truly the mother of invention. The restrictions of the pandemic required new innovations to provide care, accelerating the digital transformation in healthcare. For example, the use of telehealth skyrocketed in 2020 to provide medical care during the pandemic and, as a result of its success, may very well be here to stay.
Unfortunately, the pandemic also caused many to avoid or delay receiving care, widened health equity problems, and increased the need for behavioral health services. This has created challenges for payers regarding elements like member engagement, risk adjustment, and value-based care.
Frank Jackson, VP and General Manager at Health Language, joined David Williams at the HealthBiz podcast to discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the healthcare industry, and how technology is helping payers contend with the after-effects.
Listen to the podcast to hear how payers are:
- Reconnecting with members after delays in care throughout 2020
- Incorporating virtual care and other digital transformations going forward
- Improving accessibility and usage of clinical data to empower key initiatives like population health
- Leveraging clinical natural language processing (cNLP) to extract important information from unstructured data to form a more comprehensive view of member health