Top 10 Healthcare Day 2023 Moments: Thoughts, Conversations, and Policy Analysis

by Lydia Stowe, FiscalNote

Read 10 remarks about the state of healthcare that stuck out from FiscalNote's Healthcare Day 2023's five informative sessions. 

On Healthcare Spending Worldwide

Budget-wise, healthcare expenditure is still being supported by reasonably strong and robust fiscal policies, as of this writing. Some of that is caused by the fact that the normalisation of care necessitates the mobilisation of greater resources due to demand-driven dynamics. Additionally, even though many worried that the entire COVID-19 funds would just be switched back to something else, the pressure point around the healthcare system demands a lot of financing in many of these nations. Even if they wanted to reduce, they are now having a great deal of difficulty doing so in many circumstances.

— Antonio Martinez Castillo, FrontierView's managing director of international healthcare research

On Long-Term Backlogs

"Using neurosurgery in England as an illustration, FrontierView's data reveal, regrettably, that those services are still stagnate and have not reached their pre-pandemic levels. Although the figures for cancer patient care in Brazil are marginally higher than those for the epidemic and follow the anticipated trend line, it's not apparent if any backlogs have been cleared. These illustrations show the considerable difficulties that healthcare systems encounter, not only in these particular therapeutic specialties but generally. Similar patterns may be seen in Australia, France, and Colombia, among other nations. It seems clear that these problems are pervasive and will continue for some time.

— Alec Lee, managing director of FrontierView's healthcare research

The Future of Healthcare Policies.

"Depending on their political inclination and based on the state, I'm noticing an interest in data privacy in many state legislatures right now. I believe we'll see more of that, particularly in light of the federal government's intense attention on AI and the new FDA rulemaking relating to clinical decision support and medical devices involving AI and predictive analytics.

Vatsala Kapur is the senior director of state strategy and external relations at Bamboo Health.

Concerning the Workforce.

"A lot of the workforce problems we're experiencing now won't be resolved quickly. No law has the power to modify anything automatically. It creates a pipeline for those who could retire or burn out. And I believe that one of the problems we've had with many of the measures in the larger women's health and reproductive arena has been our inability to get to consensus. In Congress, I believe it would be a little more challenging to carve out funding for the development of the healthcare workforce pipeline.It's challenging because building consensus on something like that at this point in Congress is challenging.

— Sandhya Raman, CQ Roll Call's staff writer for health policy 

On Drug Costs.

"The lack of a firm strategy or a timeframe is the largest barrier to action on this drug price package. We all know that Congress needs a deadline to act, and they love to stretch that deadline in order to prevent us from all making it home for Christmas. Since we don't yet fully understand the House's hunger, we also don't have a timeline or a clear plan for this. The Senate appears to be providing a lot of the momentum.

— Ariel Cohen, a CQ Roll Call health reporter

Considering Possibilities & Obstacles in Healthcare Advocacy.

"We always run a geofencing campaign before our fly-in to target Hill employees and offices. This year, we did it via Twitter, and as a result, we had many responses saying things like, "I saw that ad. I knew you guys were coming. Thank you. We knew what you were going to talk about before you even got here. Social media technology use has been beneficial to us. 

Jeanne Slade, senior director of advocacy and political relations at the American College of Emergency Physicians

On Preventing EU Health & Pharmaceutical Policy Initiatives.

"Information is the currency in Brussels, and we use EU Issue Tracker to keep up with and track EU policies. It assists in keeping you informed about files, not simply those you work with often but also those that can be on the outskirts of your sector. You can stay informed of these developments and get ready for the future with the aid of a programme like EU Issue Tracker. If you're unprepared, especially in the healthcare industry, transition periods to respond to and execute changes can frequently be very brief and difficult. 

— Adrien Samson, senior manager of public affairs and healthcare policy at EuropaBio 

Regarding the EU's Public Health Data Tracking.

"There have been numerous advancements in almost every area of health and pharmaceutical policy, making this a hectic period for EU healthcare. We are witnessing a lot of really technological advances where even little textual changes can have a significant effect on stakeholders. These texts are concurrently being continually changed during the legislative process. For enterprises to be able to foresee the effects of these changes, it is crucial that they closely monitor these developments. A extremely technical document like the European Health Data Space, for example, would have a significant impact on both enterprises and people. However, both the Council and the European Parliament frequently change important textual elements.

— Jelle Verheij, a policy analyst at EU Issue Tracker's health and pharmaceuticals policy

Population Ageing.

The future of healthcare must also take into account the demographic shifts. With an ageing population and an increase in the number of patients requiring high-level therapy, how can healthcare quality be maintained? These components fit into a larger framework of policy, macro level conclusions, pandemic recovery, characteristics of inflation, and macroeconomic dynamics that will drive and direct policies for a very long time.

— Maxime Sierro, a trainee analyst with FiscalNote Professional Services 

Regarding Monitoring Healthcare Law & Regulation.

"Our firm works with the federal government, all 50 states, and American territories. I sometimes feel very overwhelmed by the amount of laws I have to keep up of, especially at this time of year. I truly appreciate not having to spend hours sifting through literally hundreds of pieces of legislation throughout the nation that potentially affect our firm thanks to FiscalNote's weekly emails. Those summary emails have been a helpful resource for me in predicting events and determining where I can follow things more precisely. 

— Jeani Frickey Saito, Intermountain Healthcare's system director of government relations and policy

Create an effective healthcare government relations strategy.

According to FiscalNote statistics, more than 46,000 healthcare-related legislation have been proposed at the federal and state levels of the United States so far in 2023. More than 20,000 conversations around healthcare-related issues were logged by FiscalNote's local monitoring service, Curate, throughout the U.S. during that time.

Changes that influence the healthcare business can be challenging to track due to the number of laws and regulations at all levels of government. When you need it, FiscalNote's solutions may offer policy information and specialised analysis at the international, national, state, and local levels, enabling you to create and carry out an effective government affairs strategy that keeps your team and larger organisation informed.

The robust package of tools from FiscalNote, which also includes CQ, FrontierView, and VoterVoice, enables you to manage stakeholders and advocates, prepare monthly reports, anticipate a bill's chances of passing, and identify the issues that require your attention.