Do HCPs really matter?

Suppose you are a startup and deciding who is your customer?

There are many stakeholders in sickcare, including healthcare professionals, patients, hospital administrators and technologists and other HCP employers, and payers. Which one would you choose to target who is willing and able to pay for your solution or who has the biggest market pain and the most to gain?

Unfortunately, even if you pick a person with the right title, you will have to navigate the treacherous waters on the buying group and the doubting Thomas who wants to scuttle the entire proposal.

Since Haven threw in the towel, there have been several media and blogosphere autopsies.

One side claims that fee for service medicine is to blame and the HCPs are immoral profiteers and just another cog in the biomedical-industrial complex.

The other side thinks that the doctors are the solution and not the problem

As we know, the quintuple aim is the goal of sick care new products. But, the answer to who cares, so what, who pays, how much seems to be what drives many newco strategies and go to market campaigns.

Administrative waste is an almost $1T problem and, for example, will require interoperable IT solutions to help solve the problem. The recent CURES ACT has all kinds of compliance mandates that need execution solutions. These kinds of problems are top of mind for technologists and administrators.

Gobbling up practices and integrating them rapidly gets the attention of the CFO or maybe a private equity group when they get an eye-popping proposal costing millions of dollars to rip out one EMR and install another.

CMIOs are wrestling with how to make Epic work and do the things clinicians want it to do without bolting on non-interoperable apps with duct tape and superglue.

On the other hand, meeting the needs of HCPs is screaming for attention.

Despite the rhetoric, the sickcare players are not necessarily all in it together.

My guess is most newcos will follow the money.

You choose. Just do it before the meter runs out.

Arlen Meyers, MD. MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs