Greater than two-thirds of leaders from well being plans and well being methods anticipate outperforming their opponents in 2026, based on a current report from Deloitte.
Nonetheless, many don’t have a really assured outlook for the healthcare trade. About 43% of leaders really feel “unsure” or “impartial” concerning the trade’s near-term outlook, up from 28% final 12 months. That is primarily attributable to coverage and regulatory uncertainty, such because the expiration of Inexpensive Care Act subsidies and uncertainty concerning the Medicare telehealth flexibilities.
“A majority of U.S. well being system and well being plan leaders predict to outperform their opponents subsequent 12 months, however doing so by following their conventional playbook,” stated Alicia Janisch, vice chair and U.S. well being care sector chief at Deloitte, in an interview. “Nonetheless, these conventional methods could fall brief amongst all of the mounting monetary and regulatory pressures which can be occurring in healthcare. Our outlook findings indicated rising nervousness about coverage shifts, persistent affordability points in a transformational second proper now for digital adoption and care fashions.”
Deloitte’s 2026 U.S. Healthcare Outlook Survey acquired responses from 120 U.S. C-suite executives from well being plans and well being methods. Further findings from the report embrace:
1. Funding in digital supply: Shoppers are persevering with to obtain care digitally attributable to comfort. Greater than 90% of customers who had a digital well being go to say they’d be prepared to have one other. As well as, 37% of customers use monitoring units for well being circumstances and 47% use units for health and well being monitoring.
Due to this curiosity amongst customers, about 60% of well being plan and well being system executives report that they plan to put money into digital well being providers to assist preventive care.
2. Scaling AI: Greater than 80% of leaders consider that gen AI and agentic AI can present “moderate-to-significant worth throughout a variety of features in 2026, from medical and enterprise operations to back-office features.” Nonetheless, 49% of organizations are nonetheless experimenting with AI and 18% of organizations haven’t adopted AI in any respect. Solely a 3rd of healthcare organizations are utilizing AI at scale.
The areas the place gen AI and agentic AI can add worth for payers and well being methods embrace enabling medical care, lowering administrative burden and enhancing client and workforce experiences.
“Attaining scale with AI means implementing the know-how enterprisewide and realizing measurable monetary impression,” the report acknowledged. “Well being care organizations that deploy AI throughout a number of features—moderately than isolating it inside particular departments—can broadly cut back administrative burdens, speed up decision-making, and improve outcomes and client experiences.”
3. Partnering with different industries: About 80% of executives say that collaborating with different industries — equivalent to retail, tech and grocery — is a C-suite precedence. For instance, working with community-based organizations can assist handle social and financial wants, whereas partnering with retailers can handle food-related wants.
“It is very important take into consideration becoming a member of forces and what innovation can come (from) trying exterior of healthcare,” Janisch stated.
Thai Noipho, Getty Pictures
