The conventional wisdom is that value-based care models will continue to evolve and become more commonplace because they are an economic necessity in a country that, to date, spends far too much on relatively inefficient healthcare, compared to peer developed nations.

Sure. Yes. But I have an alternative hypothesis.

I believe that, even if economic pressures weren’t an immediate issue, value-based care models would continue to evolve and expand because those are what younger health consumers — Millennials and Gen Z, especially — would demand anyway.

Although they often work against each other in other markets, I believe economic necessity and consumer desires will augment each other.

I believe they’ll make value-based care models nearly universal — and in less time than most healthcare stakeholders, policy wonks and market-watchers believe possible.

Here’s why.

It all began with the Internet and cell phones.

Unquestionably, the Digital Revolution has disrupted and transformed every major industry. Healthcare is no exception.

Smartphones, Internet 1.0, 2.0 and, now, the Internet of Things have fundamentally changed consumer expectations about everything:

• THE AVAILABILITY AND TIMING OF SERVICE AND SUPPORT.

A 24/7, 365-day, global Internet made the concept of “business hours” completely meaningless to younger consumers. They expect to be able to learn about, shop for and purchase what they want, whenever they want, from wherever they are.

Telemedicine, as more healthcare systems begin to experiment with it, will give patient consumers the ability to receive many services on demand, in situ.

Retail clinics and urgent cares already provide more complex, in-person diagnostic services at any hour of the day.

And remote scheduling programs now allow consumers to immediately see and book open appointments with their doctors, without having to wait on hold or make repeated calls during business hours.

But patients won’t even have to see their own primary care providers, in many cases. (This, of course, raises potentially negative consequences that I’ll discuss in a future blog).

Nevertheless, care will become more convenient as delivery methods continue to diversify. Younger patients demand it.

• VALUE TRANSPARENCY

To date, healthcare suppliers have enjoyed tremendous asymmetric power in the market, for three reasons.

1. Consumers have been beholden to location.
   Local hospital systems (and, given US hospitals’ incredible buying spree over the past decade, those systems’ affiliated practices) often enjoy large market share, so they’ve been relatively immune from downward demand pressures on their pricing.
2. Hospital systems understand that consumers have traditionally been captive to their insurers’ provider networks.
   When health systems are able to corner the market with larger insurers, they’re able to lock healthcare consumers away from choice.

3.  Hospitals have resisted giving consumers price information in advance of service.
   Many have claimed healthcare inputs are too variable case-to-case to allow apples-to-apples comparisons (although recent price transparency initiatives in Utah and elsewhere would seem to have proven it possible).

But the digital marketplace is much more egalitarian. It’s now causing momentum (and, with it, purchasing power) to shift back toward the demand side.

Consumers today expect to be able to find all their purchase options and to compare their prices. They anticipate being able to read other consumers’ reviews of their purchases.

They’re already able to do that on the retail side with Amazon, on the service side with Yelp and Angie’s List. Healthcare, rest assured, will be no exception.

• CONSUMER POWER AND RECOURSE.

In the past, doctors have only had to worry about malpractice suits; their reputations were easily scrubbed and secured. Dissatisfied patients could be paid off and subjected to gag orders.

But consumer review sites are garnering an increasing amount of power. Doctors and hospitals now need to devote a lot of attention to patient satisfaction.

Of course, patient consumers’ reviews can be arbitrary, too, and can negatively affect the quality of care when providers feel pressured to prescribe, or to acquiesce to patients’ unrealistic or ill-advised care demands. Again, this is a topic I’ll address in a future column.

For now, we’ll keep the focus on the positives: the digital shift toward giving healthcare consumers more power is great for fostering person-centered care.

Millennial and Gen Z care delivery demands will force a lot of positive changes.

There will be higher levels of patient satisfaction as care becomes more convenient and more patient-centered. Higher patient satisfaction levels tend to yield better patient engagement, which tends to yield better, more cost-efficient outcomes — a win-win for consumers and suppliers.

And, although suppliers won’t be as happy about it, improved price transparency will lower the overall cost of care, because well-informed patients will avoid high-cost / low-value providers and flock to high-value providers, instead.

Healthcare suppliers will finally have to contend with the “invisible hand.”

And, when they do, the healthcare industry will finally learn the lessons that big box retailers learned 10 years ago: even suppliers with large market shares are susceptible to the digital revolution.