This month, online healthcare booking platform Zocdoc released an end-of-the-year report detailing various trends in patient behavior. The report — based on data from the millions of visitors Zocdoc sees each month — noted things like an increased demand for sleep medicine specialists, a spike in mental health appointments during the summer, and a low rate of telehealth visits.
The report also included some predictions from Zocdoc CEO Oliver Kharraz about how patient behavior and the healthcare industry at large might change next year. Below are three of his most notable forecasts.
Patients will increasingly opt for cash-pay healthcare
Most Americans with health coverage have been conditioned to seek care from in-network providers — but these patients often get blindsided by unexpected out-of-pocket costs, Kharraz pointed out.
“Given the persistent increase in both healthcare costs and high-deductible plans, it’s no surprise that we’re seeing more patients seeking guaranteed, upfront, transparent pricing,” he said.
Kharraz thinks this trend will advance even further for things like prescriptions and longevity-focused diagnostics, such as bundled services like labs and MRIs.
He also noted that healthcare is becoming more and more consumer-driven — which means niche cash-pay services could become more popular.
“For example, we saw in our booking data that when patients chose to go out-of-network this year, it was largely for mental health, cosmetic treatments and dental care,” Kharraz stated.
Amazon will restructure its healthcare assets
Over the past few years, leaders in the healthcare industry have seen tech and retail giants like Walmart, Apple and Google struggle to break into their uniquely complex sector. Amazon is no different — and Kharraz believes there is a good chance the company will significantly rearrange its healthcare offerings in 2025.
As a tech behemoth, it’s rational to try and use your core competency to capitalize on the nearly $5 trillion healthcare spend in the U.S., he noted. For instance, Amazon has tried to leverage its retail strengths, Apple has tried to break through with its hardware capabilities, and Google has entered the sector with a data-first strategy, Kharraz explained.
“When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. But healthcare is hard to disrupt from the inside-out, and this approach has been unsuccessful,” he said.
Amazon’s healthcare efforts haven’t been very profitable, and it is “untenable” for the company to keep incurring hundreds of millions in losses, Kharraz stated.
“I suspect 2025 will be the year that Amazon determines that they don’t have the recipe to make in-person healthcare work, and managing healthcare providers is a very different business than managing logistics,” he remarked.
He thinks Amazon will likely refocus on its pharmacy benefits, which are easier to scale than care delivery offerings.
GLP-1 adoption will increase
More Americans will start using GLP-1 medications in 2025, the report predicted. GLP-1 supply issues are decreasing, so prices are coming down — meaning many Americans will gain access to medications that they couldn’t afford in the past.
This will result in several downstream effects, Kharraz said. For example, he thinks payers will likely start to treat these drugs differently.
“There will likely be an evolution in their coverage, and we’re already starting to see payers, including Medicare and Medicaid, receive pressure to expand access to weight loss drugs,” Kharraz pointed out.
He also noted that compounders may be phased out. Compounders helped fill supply gaps when GLP-1 production was slow — but now that these drugs are more available, patients will choose less expensive, FDA-approved options instead of compounded drugs, Kharraz explained.
The increased adoption of GLP-1s will also cause some indirect effects, he added.
“There may be reduced demand for traditional weight loss medications, bariatric surgeries and possibly insulin therapy in some patients. GLP-1s may reduce obesity-related comorbidities like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and certain cancers. We are still in the early innings of seeing their impact on Americans’ health and care delivery system,” Kharraz said.
Photo: Getty Images, AndreyPopov
link