Healthcare providers must start bracing for a “new normal” that represents a lower number of patients once the coronavirus pandemic is over, according to a recently released study.
Patient volume levels may get close to what they were before the pandemic, but will likely not fully return, according to the study, which was released by Strata Decision Technology. The best that providers can hope for are levels that are between 90% and 95% of what they were before the pandemic.
Inpatient volumes are recovering much more slowly than either outpatient volumes or visits to an emergency room, according to the study. After being down by 56% early in the pandemic, the number of outpatient visits was back to 98.5% of what they were before COVID-19 hit the United States in March. Emergency room visits are still down by more than 50%, but the unintended benefit of that is that it means people are only going to the ER when it is a true emergency. Inpatient volume is down nearly 20% from pre-pandemic levels.
The changing nature of healthcare should be forcing providers to embrace value-based care models over traditional fee-for-service models, according to the study.
“This report should compel health systems to accelerate their move to value-based models of care, fast track digital health efforts, and evaluate how to reduce their cost of care delivery,” commented Steve Lefar, Executive Director of StrataSphere for Strata, in a statement
