Despite significant headwinds coming to bear over the past several years, healthcare executives are expecting a favorable 2025, according to a new survey from Deloitte.
Deloitte’s Center for Health Solutions polled 80 C-level leaders at healthcare organizations, comprising 40 from health systems and 40 from health plans. Close to 60% said they believe the outlook for the coming year is favorable, increasing from 52% in last year’s survey.
A majority (69%) said they believe revenues will grow in 2025, and 71% said they expect greater profitability.
Two major themes emerged from executives in both sectors, according to Deloitte: growth and consumer affordability. In addition, insurance executives said they were gearing up for a year of regulatory change and new technological advancements, while health system leaders said they expect continued workforce challenges and enhancements to core business technologies.
“The last number of years, healthcare organizations have faced margin pressure, workforce shortages and a need to quickly adopt new technologies,” Alicia Janisch, vice chair and U.S. healthcare sector leader for Deloitte, told Fierce Healthcare. “And as we look to the future, executives are excited about growth, focusing on those growth strategies and what that’s going to look like, and that’s driving a lot of the favorable outlook.”
Sixty-five percent of the executives surveyed said that continued growth strategies were their top focus for 2025, and 46% identified managing affordability as a priority. Within that effort, 53% said that improving the consumer experience and trust were a major factor in addressing affordability.
In addition, 40% said that would devise ways to address inflation and economic recession, according to the survey.
Within growth strategies, cybersecurity is a priority, with 55% of the surveyed executives saying they intend to make enhancements in this area. Plus, 36% said they would invest in tech platforms to help foster growth.
Fifty-three percent said they were focusing on cost efficiencies and productivity as they planned for growth in 2025.
Janisch said the focus on the consumer experience and affordability is also aimed at driving growth. Consumers also expect their providers and insurers to be making these investments, she said. For example, they may be more likely to switch from a doctor that doesn’t provide telehealth options.
“The big message, the big takeaway, is focus on [the] consumer and how that’s going to drive the growth overall for both providers and payers in 2025,” she said.
Beyond the broad pulse of how executives view the state of the industry, the survey dives into specific focus areas for both payers and providers. Sixty percent of health plan executives surveyed said they expected the adoption of digital technologies to advance next year, with 53% saying generative AI and other transformative tech are likely to impact their organizational strategies.
More than half of providers (58%), meanwhile, said they expect to encounter workforce challenges in the coming year, though the urgency around this topic has decreased over the past several years.
Janisch said that health equity is also a key factor for both payers and providers.
“The focus on health equity is actually not something that was highly cited, but that we believe will be part of executives focus for 2025 and beyond, because of the ability for improvements in health equity to lead to the overall GDP,” she said.
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