Fee-for-service is the typical healthcare model which essentially implies that when patients visit their general practitioner (GP), go to the emergency department, buy prescription prescriptions, have lab tests done, and so on, they pay—whether through insurance or out of pocket. Patients with insurance, disposable income, and access to numerous healthcare resources are disproportionately favored by this paradigm. Conversely, because many of these services are sometimes prohibitively expensive, poor or uninsured people are at risk of not receiving the healthcare they require to stay healthy in the long run.
As a result of these disparities, the industry is moving slowly toward a risk-based reimbursement model, in which resources are allocated towards local healthcare providers who can provide the appropriate level of coverage and better programs to meet their patients’ unique needs. Because these healthcare practitioners on the ground are closer to their patients—and their specific health issues—they are in a better position to accept risk by allocating resources in the most efficient way possible to keep the people they serve healthy.
This raises the question of how payers, providers, life sciences companies, and other healthcare players across the ecosystem can better distribute investments and resources to support public health in a more effective and locally relevant manner.
They must have a clear line of sight into the social determinants of health (SDOH) that prevent underprivileged or marginalized people from remaining healthy as a starting point. This is necessary for determining the best resource allocation at the hyper-local level and having access to reliable, real-time location data is a key component of this.
Download this case study to learn how Socially Determined uses SafeGraph’s Point of Interest (POI) data to help clients identify the communities and individuals in need, so investments and resources can be used in the right way.
