Our Conference Chair will provide an introduction to the conference, to our sponsors and partners, and summarise the agenda.

This conference’s in-depth look at all the numbers continues with a focus in this session on the high-level trends including the latest data on PMI subscribers and claims, Healthcode and PHIN activity data plus clinician invoicing data from Civica. Rob Findlay from Insource returns with a look at NHS waiting list data.

In a new development this year, there will be two afternoon sessions dedicated to unpicking some of the detail in the data available for both PMI and self-pay patients. 

Once again, the Conference Director Ted Townsend will present his own revenue forecasts for hospital payor groups for the next two years.

As ever, in a ‘wisdom of the crowds’ approach, delegates will get to vote on how sensible they are, giving them great insights to take back to their companies for planning the years ahead.

Some of the industry’s leading CEOs will share their perspectives on what lies ahead for the industry, including Paolo Pieri, CEO of the UK’s largest private hospital group, and Nathan Irwin, CEO of the not-for-profit health insurer WPA.

Consulting Actuary Jo Buckle will bring her perspective on some of the big healthcare trends that are affecting claims, and we will also hear from Rosie Benneyworth, the CEO of the new Health Services Safety Investigation Branch (HSSIB), an attempt to bring an airline industry approach into healthcare, both NHS and private.

A panel discussion with all the speakers will allow delegates to ask their own questions of some of the industry’s leading figures.

With a nod to a previous political slogan and, despite having a new government in place, this is an opportunity to hear from speakers outside the traditional PMI provider or hospital operator.

This includes speakers representing employers and PMI brokers/employee benefit consultants as well as clinicians providing the care. We’ll also hear from an entrepreneur who built a private healthcare business from scratch and was one of only two people with private healthcare experience on the government’s post-Covid Elective Recovery Task Force, as well as a software provider focused on getting the best out of a hospital’s principal cost, its staff.

With PMI subscribers as well as claims growing, what does the future look like in terms of getting employees back to work in a cost-effective way? How much analysis do employers do on their employee PMI costs beyond cutting networks and panels? How can brokers, PMI, hospitals and clinicians best work together to deliver what employers want?

Everyone knows that you don’t need to go into a hospital for diagnosis or even many treatments these days, but as first insurers and then hospital groups expand beyond elective ‘acute’ provision into areas like occupational health, physiotherapy, chronic diseases and mental health, to name a few, what will happen to the patient seeing different healthcare providers in different locations?

And how will insurers be able to build pathways around all this different provision?

A deep dive into the latest PMI data from Healthcode, PHIN, LaingBuisson and others.

With soaring demand for private healthcare for employees, PMI providers are moving ‘down’ the organisational chart while cash plans appear to be moving up. Is this an issue just for big employers, or does it affect the small to medium-size enterprise more? And what will the landscape look like in 5 years’ time?

Post-pandemic there has been a huge rise in PMI claims for virtual primary care, not just GPs but also physiotherapy and mental health.

What began before the pandemic as a way for insurers to exert more control of the patient pathway for seldom used diagnostics and treatments, including their costs, now seems to have had the opposite effect, with customers now seeing these primary care services as integral to the services they or their employer are buying. However, delivering them profitably remains a huge challenge for the PMIs.

Will anyone come up with a sustainable solution?

A deep dive into the latest self-pay day from PHIN and LaingBuisson. Includes an analysis of NHS waiting lists and their impact on self-pay (and PMI) patients, as well as IHPN data on the NHS as a customer of private hospital services.

AI seems to be all the rage at the moment, but is being a second-mover better than being the first?

For some areas, like diagnostics, AI is already here and seems to make sense, for others the arguments are more nuanced, especially when it comes to the trade-off between investment and pay-back.

Panellists from across the sector will discuss where they see the future for AI.

As ever, delegates will be able to ask their own questions and engage in the debate as to how AI is likely to affect their own business.

Our Conference Chair will close off the day with a brief summary on what we have learnt and reflect on key takeaways.