Players and Disruptors in Health Care Industry Consolidation

In this interview, Ronald Barkley, MS, JD, Cancer Center Business Development Group, provides an overview of the current consolidation of the health care industry and the major players and disruptors leading this transformation. Barkley spoke as part of the panel “Healthcare Industry Consolidation: The Impact on Cancer Care and Strategic Partnerships” at the 2023 Clinical Pathways Congress + Cancer Care Business Exchange.

Ron Barkley: Good morning. I'm Ron Barkley, and I am the president of Cancer Center Business Development Group and also one of the principals in our Cancer Care Business Exchange program.

What are you most excited about to share with attendees?

Ron Barkley: I'm most excited to share with attendees the overall change that's occurring very rapidly, the transformation of cancer care that has been theoretical very much up until about now but is really accelerating and taking place very rapidly. The costs of cancer care as well as cost of health care in general, has not abated, and there's very serious efforts to change that dynamic.

Who are the major players and disruptors that are leading the way?

Ron Barkley: I think they can be categorized into three profiles. One is the nontraditional players disruptors. Actually, it was defined by the American Hospital Association as being retail and technology disruptors. Retail being examples of Amazon acquiring and getting into primary care with One Medical, VillageMD and Walgreens, Oak Street Primary Care Group with CVS.

So you've got big box retail businesses getting into primary care, that's a disruption. The health systems, large health system consolidations, mergers, often called integrated delivery networks, sort of the same animal. And third, the primary care risk-taking groups that are all focused on the potential for large scale primary care ownership of the population, population health at risk, which translates to capitation. Think HMO. And so, those are the characters that are stepping out into what seems to be consolidation that grabs market share and leverage.

What do you think the motivations are for health care consolidation?

Ron Barkley: Protection, safety, safety in numbers, and being able to enjoy economies of scale and negotiating leverage by ganging up and being larger than smaller. That's the motivation.

Providers can respond to consolidation this way and should be thinking: (1) is for your organization, whether it is a medical practice or a hospital system. (2) What is going on in your market that you need to pay attention and respond to.

So, an internal evaluation of your operational status and what consolidation threats might mean to your operations today. So, I think, an internal evaluation of what you have and don't have and what's going on in your market and really explore what that could mean to you. So there's a need for deliberation that I think is not going on to the extent it should as to what these larger developments and industry consolidation will mean to your provider organization.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

Ron Barkley: Maybe the thought that we stand as a thought leadership group for transforming cancer care. And I believe that you cannot transform cancer care without transforming the payment for cancer care, which is an area that we're very focused on the methodologies of payment, alternative payment, which enable those consolidations, those consolidators, to be in a position to drive changes in payment. So that would be an area that we want to focus on moving forward.