Greater than two-thirds of leaders from well being plans and well being techniques anticipate outperforming their rivals in 2026, in keeping with a latest report from Deloitte.
Nonetheless, many don’t have a really assured outlook for the healthcare business. About 43% of leaders really feel “unsure” or “impartial” in regards to the business’s near-term outlook, up from 28% final yr. That is primarily as a consequence of coverage and regulatory uncertainty, such because the expiration of Reasonably priced 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 rivals subsequent yr, 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 are 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 obtained responses from 120 U.S. C-suite executives from well being plans and well being techniques. Extra findings from the report embrace:
1. Funding in digital supply: Customers are persevering with to obtain care digitally as a consequence of comfort. Greater than 90% of shoppers who had a digital well being go to say they’d be prepared to have one other. As well as, 37% of shoppers use monitoring units for well being circumstances and 47% use units for health and well being monitoring.
Due to this curiosity amongst shoppers, about 60% of well being plan and well being system executives report that they plan to spend money on digital well being companies to help 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 spread of capabilities in 2026, from scientific and enterprise operations to back-office capabilities.” 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 techniques embrace enabling scientific care, decreasing administrative burden and bettering shopper and workforce experiences.
“Reaching scale with AI means implementing the know-how enterprisewide and realizing measurable monetary affect,” the report acknowledged. “Well being care organizations that deploy AI throughout a number of capabilities—moderately than isolating it inside particular departments—can broadly cut back administrative burdens, speed up decision-making, and improve outcomes and shopper experiences.”
3. Partnering with different industries: About 80% of executives say that collaborating with different industries — akin to retail, tech and grocery — is a C-suite precedence. For instance, working with community-based organizations might help handle social and financial wants, whereas partnering with retailers can handle food-related wants.
“You will need to take into consideration becoming a member of forces and what innovation can come [from] wanting outdoors of healthcare,” Janisch stated.
Thai Noipho, Getty Photos
