In an uncertain policy and macroeconomic environment, healthcare finance leaders are concerned about what the future holds, a new report showed.
Analysts at Deloitte surveyed 64 finance leaders, split evenly between executives from health systems and insurers, to capture what they view as the biggest challenges and opportunities coming down the pike. Most (84%) of those surveyed said they are worried about business conditions given the cloudy policy outlook, economic concerns and potential disruptions from tariffs and the supply chain.
Nearly three-quarters (73%) said they were concerned about future revenue growth and profitability.
Over the past several years, workforce challenges, cost reductions and cybersecurity have all been top concerns for finance leaders in healthcare. However, this year’s survey found external factors taking on a much greater role.
“Internal concerns like workforce challenges, cost reduction, and cybersecurity—once top priorities for healthcare chief financial officers in our previous surveys—seem to have become less urgent amid rising external factors, according to survey respondents,” the researchers said.
For example, the report notes that turnover in the workforce appears to have stabilized after significant churn immediately after the COVID-19 pandemic. However, many clinicians are still reporting burnout, and there is diminishing trust in leaders at these organizations, the analysts said.
And cyberthreats continue to plague healthcare even if financial leaders are putting less emphasis on that arena, according to the report.
The survey also dove into the policy changes expected to have the biggest impacts. Health systems ranked tariffs and trade policy at No. 1, while insurers named drug pricing policy as the issue likely to have largest effect.
Health systems placed Medicaid overhauls as the second-highest impact, and regulatory changes around data and technology came in third. For health plans, trade policy was second and Medicaid reform third.
Hospitals and health systems require significant amounts of equipment and supplies, and a large share of those items are imported from other countries, so they’re likely to feel the squeeze from tariffs more than providers.
Health plan leaders, meanwhile, identified multiple policy changes in the drug pricing space that are likely to impact them, including changes included as part of the Inflation Reduction Act.
The surveyed executives outlined some of the levers they have available to make an impact on their organizations’ financial health, but they’re not yet seeing impact from these steps. For instance, among health plans that looked to mergers and acquisitions as a solution, 59% said they’ve realized “moderate or no impact” from those deals.
Half of the health systems said the same about M&A.
Leaders at both health systems and health plans are also still waiting to see significant change manifest from value-based care. Sixty-three percent of health system financial leaders and 62% of those at health plans reported “moderate or no impact” from strategic, value-based or risk-based contracting.
The report also includes some key strategies leaders can deploy to adapt more nimbly to a complicated and rapidly changing environment. Organizations should adopt adaptive planning cycles and plan scenarios in real time while also identifying growth opportunities and ways to refresh the product portfolio.
“In a rapidly evolving market, CFOs can be well positioned to steward stability and transformation in ways that ultimately can benefit patients, members, communities, the health care workforce, and the health care industry, at large,” the report said.
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