Question

Strategic planning for healthcare insurance- (core areas in healthcare)

Discuss two of these core elements for planning consideration: finance (including efficiency/productivity), quality and value, current and planned mix of products and services, current/proposed strategies, and human resource management. Give examples

Answer 1

Strategic planning involves planning of the following two core elements:

Finance – In the competitive environment, health care organisation needs to plan their finances in order to reduce cost and gain with adequate use of resources. Organisations need to address the following things:

• Investment plans – Organisations must compare the cost of investment and benefits arising out of those, if benefits are more than only the investment should be done.
• Adequate use of resources – They must keep a check on resources available and adequately using them without any staff or equipments being idle. Only then the cost can be controlled.
• Timely execution of claims – Organisations must execute claim on timely basis so they can have controlled cash flow in organisation.

For example – XYZ Healthcare Ltd is introducing new clinical services. So, strategic planning involves determining the cost of investment and also analysing that how many customers will be using those services and estimated profits should be determined.

Quality and value – Main mission of health care organisations is to provide quality service to patients and their value is utmost important for them. So, strategic planning must include proper quality measures that are to be undertaken at every step. In dynamic environment every organisation tries to be best and now days they are competing on the basis of quality improvement. So, healthcare organisations must improvise quality measures and create good value of their services which attracts more customers.

For example – ABC Healthcare organisations hired quality inspection team that will adopt new technology which will enhance value of their services; they will keep a regular check on quality that whether it is as per the set standards and also involves taking corrective actions so that best service is available to patient.