Clarity For the Road Ahead – How Changes in Healthcare Policy Impacts Startups’ Business Models

As 2020 winds down, I’ve been thinking a lot about how Jumpstart Foundry can help founders position themselves to make significant progress in 2021. I realize what most of us want is some clarity, some certainty, some idea of what is to come. We got a bit of that with the election now behind us. Still, there is so much more that founders should know about to be successful in the year ahead.

Clarity for the road ahead —  It’s what we all want in the new year and especially what we want after this particular year.

How Policy Provides Clarity

I can tell you this with relative certainty that Policy provides clarity. Unfortunately, it sometimes takes navigating a maze to understand policy, especially healthcare policy. But having a good grasp on what policies are changing and how they might influence business models is key for healthcare entrepreneurs. Policy drives market dynamics in the healthcare industry. A shift in policy could very easily shift who your target customer is, how much that customer will be reimbursed for certain activities, what incentives they are working with, etc. Essentially, it can impact your business model or go-to-market strategy in significant ways.

Now I’m not going to unearth major healthcare policy trends in this blog post — I’ll save that for later — however, I want to highlight its importance and ways it influences healthcare. I know that staying on top of policy changes can be time-intensive, tedious work. And I also know that you will often purposefully or not ignore it. But policy is one of the most dangerous things you can ignore. You could, again intentionally or not, be building a product or selling to a customer that is no longer incentivized to do so. So my advice for exiting 2020 and entering 2021 with clarity for the road ahead is to invest some time into understanding policy that might impact your business.

Having a broad understanding of healthcare policy changes can help provide some of that much sought after clarity that entrepreneurs are seeking. But policy is boring and often overly complicated, much like the healthcare industry itself. To clear through the complexity, I’m going to do my best to write about and discuss policy with experts to distill things down a bit. I intend to help entrepreneurs get the clarity they need to make wise business decisions rooted in the knowledge and understanding of important healthcare policy work.

Three Ways Changes in Policy Influence Healthcare

1. The Potential to both accelerate and hinder innovations coming to the market in healthcare

Existing CMS and the FDA’s policies and procedures make bringing a new product to market incredibly time and capital intensive. However, entrepreneurs should keep an eye on changes to these policies as they could open up and accelerate paths for a breakthrough technology to achieve clearance.

2. Future Directions for Telemedicine and Remote Care

As we all know and likely have experienced through the pandemic, telemedicine, and remote patient care models are planting deep roots in our health system. Consumers will ensure that the ease of tele/remote care does not go away, but policy will make sure it’s safe and effective to do so. So, while we’re in what seems like the wild west of telemedicine, healthcare entrepreneurs should be watching for policy work that will dictate long term use and reimbursement for new, innovative care models. 

3. New Opportunities for Innovation

Whenever a new policy is put in place, it forces the industry to alter how they were doing things previously. Any interruption to the status quo creates opportunities for entrepreneurs. Understanding how hospitals or employers might have to change the way they deliver care or insurance to their patients or employees could give you inspiration for a new solution or a way to pivot your business to be more effective. Follow policy, and you’ll follow the opportunity. 

In pursuit of clarity,
Eller.