Marcus Whitney on how healthcare finance leaders can turn headwinds into tailwinds

At the HFMA Annual Conference, you plan to discuss how the next five to 10 years will present great opportunities for industry leaders if they can turn headwinds into tailwinds. How can finance leaders do this?

Part of the problem in healthcare is that many leaders are thinking about their legacy competition — the competition that they have known for the past 10, 20 or 30 years. They are not thinking about new entrants as serious competition. Yet we’ve gone through several cycles of disruption already in the music, media, taxi, hotel and retail industries. There are enough case studies out there that leaders should not be leaning into the “healthcare is different” belief.

Of course, healthcare will always be different from other industries, but it is heading in the direction of being less different. Healthcare is becoming more consumer-driven. And it is going to be more technology-enabled and live more on our phones, just like everything else.