At the Crossroads: Issues and Challenges in US Healthcare
Part of what makes the healthcare industry massive and daunting from a business standpoint is the industry stakeholders’ being not just your typical buyer-seller-supplier combo. The several enormous healthcare industry segments include patients, providers (e.g., hospitals, labs), prescribers (e.g., physicians, clinics and pharmacy clinics), pharmacy, pharmaceutical and medical equipment manufacturers, regulators, and payers (e.g., Medicare and insurance companies). Several of these segments represent separate immense industries on their own (e.g., drug, insurance, and medical device industries). On top of this, federal and state laws and regulations impose strict requirements regarding what can be sold, how products are to be evaluated, who is going to pay for which services, who is eligible for which benefits, who can practice where, etc.
