A Better Front Door To Healthcare

I compare today’s healthcare experience to moving to a city with no signs or maps and explain why that confusion keeps people from getting care. I share a real data point showing 57% of members skipping preventive exams and argue for a better front door led by a trusted physician. 
• the “no directions” problem in healthcare navigation for employees 
• why people with insurance still delay care 
• what 57% missing preventive exams signals for long-term risk 
• how late care can turn stage one into stage four 
• the burden of finding in-network care, scheduling, follow-ups, specialists and bills 
• why a trusted primary care physician can guide decisions and improve outcomes 
• the employer question that matters most: do employees have a front door to care 
Let's talk more next week. 

Music by Alex Lambert.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Welcome to another Tuesday morning with Justin. I'm Justin Futrell, benefit advisor at True North Companies. Today, I want you to imagine something. Imagine moving to a new city where there are no street signs, no maps, no

Welcome And A Simple Thought Experiment

SPEAKER_00 0:35

GPS, no directions. You need to get somewhere important, but nobody tells you how to get there. That's

Healthcare Without Directions

SPEAKER_00 0:45

how many employees experience healthcare today. They have insurance, they have a network, they have ID cards, but they don't have a clear front door. And when people don't know where to start, they often do nothing at all. Recently, I was reviewing data for a client and discovered that 57% of members on the plan had not completed a preventative exam in the last 24 months. Think about that. It's one thing to be under budget with your healthcare

The 57% Preventive Care Warning

SPEAKER_00 1:21

splend, and it's another thing to have the concern that maybe we're under budget because no one is going to the doctor in the first place. Does that create a long-term effect down the road with something being in stage four instead of stage one, for example? So getting back on track here, if if we think about more than half of the population never making it through the front door of the healthcare system, it's probably not because they don't care about their health or because they don't have insurance, they do, but because accessing care has become more difficult, inconvenient, and oftentimes expensive. The traditional healthcare system assumes you know how to find a physician and network, of course, schedule an appointment, coordinate follow-up care, find specialists, compare facilities, interpret bills. Most people don't want to become healthcare experts, right? They just want someone

Building A Trusted Front Door

SPEAKER_00 2:23

to trust to help them make good decisions. I believe we need to create a new front door. A trusted physician becomes the guide, someone who knows your history, someone who can catch issues early, someone who can direct you toward the highest quality care when you need it. When that happens, healthcare becomes simpler and often less expensive, which makes my job easier. Now, in closing, the question I think employers should be asking is not how do we lower our healthcare costs? The better question might be do our employees have a front door to healthcare?

The Employer Question That Matters

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Because when people have a trusted entry point, they tend to seek earlier uh care, make better decisions, and avoid many of those costly detours that drive health plan spend down the road. Maybe healthcare doesn't need another band aid. Maybe it just needs a better front door. But what does that look like? What do you think that means? Let's talk more next week.