US Healthcare Trends and Contradictions in 2019

Over the past several years, many healthcare trends have been identified as micro rather than macro as incremental year-to-year changes dominated the US healthcare market. Looking at 2019 and toward 2020, the shift to macro-level trends returns, reflecting market transformation during the Trump administration. For example, many 2017 and 2018 trends were a continuation of micro themes, such as benefit design offerings, care delivery initiatives, contracting, or early technologies for monitoring personal health status.

Now, structural and broader market changes are part of a bigger economic transformation that includes healthcare as a major beneficiary. As a result, in 2019 many trends are macro-focused, in addition to some continuing micro aspects, all of which are being transformed in parallel. Much of the innovation efforts to date have led to trends that move us from micro to macro perspectives on change.

The forecasted trends identified in this article focus on the macro and micro levels that may emerge or are just emerging, depending on your perspective. Furthermore, some trends may be opposing to other trends, which reflects the uncertainty along with the diversity of change in healthcare, globally and nationally.

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