The injustice of healthcare inequity should be reason enough for the U.S. healthcare system to make changes to support diverse populations.
However, as an industry, we’ve been discussing these issues for decades, and we’re seeing limited improvements in life expectancy and outcomes for individuals.
The recent review by Deloitte demonstrated the massive cost to our system of over $300B, yet we still seem stalled in changing the outcomes for our patients. What may be required is a narrower economic view of the impact so that organizations can coordinate a focus around the specific impact of inequity and economic costs on the patients they serve.
To assist our clients in understanding how the economics may impact their organization, TruLite recently engaged with Wakely, an HMA Company, to develop a financial view into the cost of inequity at a health condition level. Our detailed analysis of CMS data sets reveals significant disparities in cost by chronic conditions when broken into racial and ethnicity segments.
Our early reviews of large ACOs indicate economic disparities in the tens of millions of additional costs for inequity. As the market moves to value-based models, managing these disparities will be critical for organizations to maintain profitability.
