Healthcare affordability requires a collective effort, industry leaders say

There’s an urgency to address healthcare affordability, but more could be done by providers, insurers and investors, according to panelists at a Vitalic Health-assembled panel at ViVE, the international annual health tech conference sponsored by CHIME and held Feb. 22-25 in Los Angeles.

In the presentation, called “Vitalic Health: Where tech meets financial reality,” panelists sounded the call for action from all industry stakeholders.

“I think the clock’s really ticking for real now,” said Marcus Whitney, founding partner of Jumpstart Health Investors, an HFMA board member and one of three panelists who spoke as part of the session. “I don’t think anyone cares to protect incumbents anymore, so this, to me, feels like the chance to maintain the position of leadership in healthcare.”

C. Ann Jordan, JD, president and CEO of HFMA, moderated the panel, which highlighted the need for a program such as Vitalic Health, an HFMA strategic initiative that strives to advance financial sustainability and better health outcomes in U.S. healthcare.

The industry has seen an acceleration of technological innovation that has strengthened operational efficiency and led to improvements in quality of care, access to care and health outcomes in the past five years, said Jeremy Friese, MD, founder and CEO of Humata Health, a prior authorization-focused tech company.

Yet technology hasn’t made significant strides in improving healthcare affordability at scale, he said.

Today, 29% of American consumers believe affordability is the most urgent healthcare problem the nation faces, according to a recent Gallup poll.^a That’s up from 23% a year ago.

It’s a challenge the industry must solve — together — or risk losing control of how the future of care delivery takes shape, Friese said.

“I actually think the affordability paradox is the driver of courage in healthcare,” he said.

A system at an inflection point

During the ViVE panel discussion, leaders explored what it takes to build ecosystems that are financially strong and capable of delivering better health and affordability over the long haul.

They also explored whether technology is making healthcare more affordable, how private equity investment could support the move toward a more sustainable healthcare delivery system, and what it will take to create resilient organizations and systems, smarter investment and measurable impact.

“It’s not a conversation about what’s broken, but about what we can build,” Jordan said in introducing the panelists.

“There is a massive amount to be done in perfecting the healthcare operating model,” she said.

 “When looking at sustainability in healthcare, there’s a big, loud voice out there saying that tech is going to be the answer,” she said. “And it’s projected that U.S. healthcare providers are going to increase their technology budgets to approximately $70 billion in 2026.”

Given that a Vitalic Health survey found that 94% of industry thought leaders don’t believe policymakers and healthcare stakeholders are leading the way to healthcare sustainability at a macro level, leaders must ask harder questions about how and where technology is deployed and whether it’s moving the needle on outcomes that truly matter, Jordan said.^b

Much of the challenge in transforming the U.S. healthcare system to be more affordable and sustainable lies in its design, said Dennis Dahlen, CFO, Mayo Clinic.

“We’re organized around fixing things instead of preventing things,” he said. “If you were whiteboarding this, I think you’d design it differently.”

Acceleration toward collaboration

The affordability paradox could be viewed as a systems failure, rather than the failure of a single stakeholder.

“It’s on everybody’s watch,” Jordan said.

Successful collaborations are emerging to try to boost affordability. Providers and payers are starting to solve problems together.

Friese, who has worked as a practicing radiologist and a software developer for healthcare providers, said the degradation of healthcare affordability and higher proportions of financial distress among hospitals and health systems have resulted in a “dramatic increase in the willingness to partner across the aisle.”

“Because people are struggling, there’s actually an appetite now for collaboration, and that’s exciting,” he said.

Jordan asked panelists about the current environment and how industry executives might respond.

“What would real courage and accountability toward sustainability look like from the leaders in this room?” Jordan said. “Are there legacy stakeholders that are actually incentivized to reverse the affordability paradox and redesign and move their own cheese?”

Addressing Jordan’s proposed outlook, Mayo’s Dahlen said, “It’s a really provocative question, because the use of the word courage implies we’re going to be taking risk, right?

He added, “Risk is corrosive to an incumbent marketplace, particularly those of us that have been in the marketplace forever and [created] a successful niche for ourselves.”

He described courage as the willingness to tear down existing constructs in healthcare, from fee-for-service to compensation models to the ways in which the industry uses human effort in care delivery and operations or provides access to care.

“I think that the true measure of courage, though, is the willingness to not just start something, but finish it,” Dahlen said.

He said that it’s his hope that the creation of Vitalic Health “will be enough … to catalyze collaboration and forward movement of us as an industry.”

For too long, transformation in healthcare has been held back by the desire to protect the healthcare establishment, Whitney said.

“I’m an outsider who came [into healthcare] through the venture technology lane,” he said. “My whole job is to try to see around the corner, and I have, for the longest time, just basically felt like you had to pander to the incumbents.”

He views Vitalic Health as an opportunity for providers to intentionally lead change rather than having transformation happen to them.

“This is actually the last chance,” he said. “This is the shot on goal.” 

For an earlier and broader discussion of the results of the ViVE panel, see “HFMA CEO Jordan, healthcare leaders point to urgency of affordability challenges during ViVE conference | HFMA.”

Footnotes

a. Saad, L., and Brenan, M., “Cost leads Americans’ top-of-mind healthcare concerns,” Gallup, Dec. 15, 2025.
b. Vitalic Health, U.S. Healthcare Vitals Tracker, HFMA, 2026.