The Billion-Dollar Opportunity Hiding in Care Plans

The following is a guest article by Kevin Torf, CEO at T2 Group, and Founder of EZCARE

In today’s healthcare environment, where health systems are doing everything possible to manage costs and optimize every revenue line, they are overlooking one very important area: the point of care.

T2 Group, a leading health IT partner to health systems nationwide, has identified an opportunity that has been hiding in plain sight: to capture sizeable unrealized annual revenue from the care and wellness products patients purchase regularly. To help health systems capitalize on this opportunity and earn millions in revenue over the long term, T2 has developed EZCARE, a unique turnkey AI-driven e-commerce platform that connects personalized product recommendations from doctors directly to existing fulfillment partners via patients’ electronic health record (EHR) portals.

The premise behind EZCARE applies to healthcare providers of any size, from single-doctor practices to large health systems: It is a well-known fact that patients already trust their healthcare providers and will likely act on what they recommend. The EZCARE platform gives them a convenient way to do just that, inside the EHR portfolio they already use to manage their care.

A Vast Untapped Market for Healthcare Providers

According to data acquired from multiple sources cited below, we have determined a huge revenue opportunity for healthcare systems of all sizes.

Industry estimates show the average American spends $6011 annually on wellness products purchased online. U.S. consumers’ total wellness product expenditures can be broken down into eight categories as follows:

• Recovery Fitness and Movement $76.1 billion
  • Recovery/rehabilitation products driven by able-bodied equipment purchases
• Personal Care and Self-Care $107.3 billion
  • Beauty, aesthetics, and routine maintenance products
• Nutrition and Supplements $78.6 billion
  • Vitamins, protein, specialty nutrition, and dietary supplements
• Mental and Emotional Wellness $33.4 billion
  • Mindfulness, stress support, and relaxation tools
• Holistic, Natural and Alternative $65.8 billion
  • Herbal, botanical, and alternative medicine products
• Sleep Wellness $3 billion
  • CPAP supplies, recovery, and chronic condition management
• Environmental and Home Wellness $5.2 billion
  • Air/water purifiers and filtration, bedding, humidifiers, and lighting
• WellTech $420 billion
  • Glucose monitors, blood pressure cuffs, pulse oximeters, scales, and other digital equipment

Most of these products are currently purchased from third-party retailers, not from the healthcare providers that recommend them. This means that most wellness revenue walks right out the door after every patient meets with a healthcare professional—a significant missed opportunity, given that the average markup on these products is roughly 26%.

The EZCARE platform is designed to change that. It facilitates a very different scenario that allows healthcare providers to capture that lost revenue and make the most of an opportunity that until now hasn’t been capitalized on, while offering patients the convenience of purchasing doctor-recommended wellness products via e-commerce.

The EZCARE Model Creates a New Supply Chain and Personalized Experience

Here’s an example of how:

• A care team recommends glucose monitoring at home for a patient, which is recorded in the patient’s EHR portal
• The EZCARE engine reads the after-visit summary and identifies relevant products that are applicable
• Personalized, brand-agnostic options for glucose monitors appear alongside the patient’s after-visit summary
• The patient selects one of the recommended glucose monitors, with a one-click checkout to purchase the product right from the portal
• A third-party delivers the monitor to the patient, with fulfillment partners handling coordination end-to-end, and the healthcare provider receives the revenue
• The care team receives purchase confirmation and the added assurance that the patient is following up on recommendations; this increases the likelihood of a favorable care outcome

Revenue Grows with Portal Adoption

The timing is right to incorporate EZCARE into the patient workflow. While the EHR portal is a relatively new resource in healthcare, usage is growing as people become more accustomed to using digital tools to manage their healthcare and navigate the healthcare system.

According to statistics from the University of Michigan, the share of patients who access their patient portals regularly is expected to grow from 51% to 78% over the next five years. And as healthcare providers’ patient portal usage continues to expand and patient engagement deepens, potential EZCARE revenue can be expected to grow as well.

Wellness e-commerce penetration is also expanding rapidly. According to eMarketer, the e-commerce market for health and wellness products is growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.25%, as an increasing number of consumers embrace the convenience of online shopping for everything from vitamin supplements to blood pressure monitors.

Given this exponential rate of growth for both wellness e-commerce and portal usage, we project that a hospital with 1 million patients can expect to earn $4.8 million in additional revenue a year. And that estimate may be conservative.

A No-Cost Investment with Exponential Returns

Designed by a team of healthcare, IT, and UX professionals with decades of experience developing technology solutions that have created over $500 million in value, EZCARE is a comprehensive and turnkey AI-driven platform. Built on Epic-supported standards, HIPAA-compliant, and designed to integrate with all EHR platforms, it is designed to handle the wellness purchasing process from end-to-end, from sourcing products for doctor recommendations to order fulfillment. 

EZCARE can be up and running quickly. No investment in new technology, equipment, or personnel is required to implement it, and there are no long-term inventory costs since the products are sourced directly from the vendor. EZCARE requires no customer acquisition or outreach cost since the patients and EHR portals are already part of the healthcare provider system.

EZCARE is also a valuable source of information that can be used to better monitor patient care. Built-in data analytics measure revenue and patient purchasing patterns and follow-through, giving clinicians a better read on their patients’ behavior and whether they are complying with their care recommendations.

At a time when healthcare providers are continually looking to maximize revenue and improve the quality of care, EZCARE offers a way for them to do both: a huge income generator for healthcare organizations and an integral part of the patient’s diagnostic and treatment plan.

If you are interested in taking the next step toward implementing EZCARE and realizing the many advantages it has to offer, we invite you to apply to become an EZCARE Launch Partner.