Maulik Joshi, the Chief Operating Officer of Maryland’s Anne Arundel Medical Center, shared his experiences in the healthcare industry and also some of the biggest challenges the industry is facing. One of these is the way in which doctors are compensated in the United States. Doctors in the U.S. typically get paid by the number of patients they see. This creates incentive to see as many patients as possible in a short period of time. As a possible solution, Joshi suggests compensation schemes that mix a base salary and bonuses tied to specific performance criteria. The health care system that Joshi manages has implemented this compensation system with successful results.
Joshi described a potential value from mergers between health care providers and insurance providers. Merging a hospital with an insurance company would create price transparency, and would provide consumers more information on costs beyond their current health premiums. Price transparency will become more important as consumers pay larger portions of their health care costs.