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What 2021 Could Mean For Healthcare And Small Business

 
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FROM FORBES. COM / BY JAY FULCHER

The New Year is here, and with it, a new administration. Atop the agenda, among dozens of challenges outlined in President Joe Biden’s inauguration speech, is tackling the Covid-19 pandemic. In fact, Biden revealed a $1.9 trillion emergency relief plan, dubbed the American Rescue Plan, right before he took office. At the time of this writing, more than 500,000 American lives have been lost, which is a tragedy of epic proportion, and it’s time to put the people first.

But I believe an important question to ask is: What exactly will the Biden administration mean for healthcare? And how will that affect small businesses and their employees?

More Emphasis On The Affordable Care Act

Long before the pandemic, then-president-elect Biden was vocal about his plans to salvage and strengthen the Affordable Care Act. "Come January, we're going to work quickly with Congress to dramatically ramp up healthcare protections, get Americans universal coverage and lower healthcare costs, as soon as humanly possible," he said on November 10 in a campaign address.

While the private industry will continue to drive enrollment and there will be an expansion of newer players broadening access to healthcare, overall, I predict that small businesses won’t see much change as far as the ACA is concerned in the near term. 

In 2021, we might see additional adoption of Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements, which became an offering in 2020. The more modern model of employer-sponsored health insurance is based on reimbursing employees for insurance rather than buying it for them. For small businesses, ICHRA represents a simpler way to provide health insurance to employees. ICHRA also directly addresses ACA compliance for small businesses with 50 or more employees.

All in all, the pandemic has highlighted gaps in care. For example, there’s a stark similarity between issues in providing access to Covid-19 vaccines and access to healthcare in general. Pharmacy deserts are not a new phenomenon in the U.S., but they’re showcasing the difficulty of getting vaccines into the arms of people living in rural areas. Likewise, those health deserts represent a broader issue of healthcare access, and affordable health options to solve the problem must step in.

Continued Investment In Healthcare

As expected, Covid-19 put healthcare into the spotlight in 2020. The health and well-being of all Americans became a priority across the public and private sectors. As a result, investment activity also spiked. In fact, 2020 saw global healthcare funding hit a new record, with more than $80 billion in equity funding raised across nearly 6,000 deals, according to CB Insights. 

Not surprisingly, it also sparked an enormous investment in direct-to-consumer companies that offer telemedicine and virtual care.

Covid-19 also contributed to growing year-over-year investment in virtual care, such as video visits and telemedicine, remote monitoring, virtual consults and virtual second opinions. "Three out of four executives predicted that industrywide investments in virtual health would be significantly higher (more than 25 percent) over the next decade than today," according to a Deloitte Center for Health Solutions and American Telemedicine Association survey. Just as physical workspaces will likely never be the same after the pandemic, so too has medicine changed forever. 

While healthcare investment is promising, it’s not enough. Truly new offerings are still in shorter supply than necessary. There is more work to be done.

Keeping An Open Mind For Your Small Business

As more options become available and healthcare becomes more democratized, small-business owners should take stock. They should question whether they’re getting the best deal and ask their broker for some outside-the-box options. I believe those who ask will be surprised by the results.

Too often, brokers follow tradition and offer healthcare plans with the same old carriers. Brokers have — and will continue to — serve a vital purpose in the health ecosystem. They are invaluable, especially for companies that have more complex benefits needs. Brokers shouldn’t be pushed out of the way; rather, they should be enabled to better serve their clients. The next generation of brokers will need to adopt a creative, tech-forward mindset to find the best, modern options. In turn, they will be able to capitalize on the opportunity that our post-pandemic world has created.

And too often, small businesses simply auto-renew insurance plans (approximately 80% in my experience) without exploring what else is out there. Yet, many new options exist for those who ask the question. Small-business owners must be proactive in asking the questions of those who understand the landscape. This year, I predict that we’ll see small businesses shift from complacency to smarter solutions. Leaders will need to push past conventional options and see more affordable quality care choices for their people.

Whatever 2021 brings, small businesses will surely be at the edge of their seat. As a community, we need to band together to weather the Covid-19 storm and ensure the playing field becomes more leveled for America’s underserved small businesses — one healthcare plan at a time.