Headline: Five
imperatives for a payer-provider joint venture partnership
Subhead: Going big
is not enough to guarantee your JV partnership win
Payer-provider
joint venture partnerships are transforming healthcare, driving positive market
change and better patient outcomes. But merely launching a joint venture is not
enough to make it successful.
Sure,
merging the actuarial heft of payers with the skill sets of providers represents
a smart play in a price-constrained environment crying out for service
differentiation. According to McKinsey & Company, provider-owned
health plans are growing at a rate of six percent a year.
The
excitement is real; so are risks. Can you bust out of your business silo and commit
to a deep culture change? Can you be as agile as a tech-oriented start-up? Can
you separate your partnership’s needs from those of a parent payer/provider?
In
pursuing payer-provider JV partnership success, keep five imperatives in mind:
1.
Define and set
culture early
– People think of culture as warm and fuzzy. But culture is not a feeling; it’s
how people walk in and out of work every day.
The
end goal of improving care and patient outcomes must be embedded in the culture
early, even though it is still a start-up. A lot of times, smart healthcare JVs
hire CEOs outside the health industry to help set the right culture first,
especially one geared to a start-up environment.
2.
Avoid us vs. them –When you look at
a JV partnership model, it isn’t one entity. You have three, two parents and
the partnership.
Culturally there is almost a
tendency for each to say we are going to do it our way. It’s critical everyone plays
nicely in the same sandbox. Certain strengths and capabilities can be leveraged
and applied from a parent payer or provider which translate into greater, more
enhanced and differentiated outcomes when going into the marketplace.
3.
Operate within
your natural state of maturity (and don’t try to trailblaze if you can’t) – When you talk
about start-ups and new ventures, a large reason they fail is by trying to do
too much too fast.
Ask yourself: Do I have the basics down first, what are my strategic objectives, and
am I moving too fast that I am putting myself at risk of not reaching my
six-month or 12-month strategic objectives. Operating with your natural
stage of maturity, i.e. learning to crawl before you can walk, is critical for
longevity in the payer-provider JV model.
4.
Prioritize
operational planning as much as strategy planning –
In a payer-provider JV startup, there is a
tendency to wear multiple hats. Because you wear different hats at different
times, there’s a tendency to pull the reins back, and determine strategy first.
As
much as that is the right thing to do, don’t forget to prioritize the
operational planning so you can designate levels of ownership, responsibility
and accountability within the broader strategy, and operationalize it with the
right people. That way, you can still work with structure and accountability
within a start-up environment.
5.
Maintaining focus
on patient/member
– In payer-provider JV startups, the patient is still the target. Throughout
the start-up process, always be focused on improving patient outcomes, driving
more membership, and doing it in a more synergist, efficient way.
Getting
these five imperatives right will help a payer-provider JV partnership set the
right balance of strategic and tactical considerations to achieve true market
differentiation – and greater relevance to our morphing marketplace.
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