Cone Health CEO: We're Reinventing In Face Of Challenges

Owen Covington | The Business Journal | January 8, 2013

Through initiatives such as the Triad Healthcare Network and technological investments like the $120 million EPIC electronic health records system, Cone Health is reinventing itself for an evolving health care landscape, Cone's CEO Tim Rice told the Triad Association of Health Underwriters Tuesday.

"To say it's an interesting time in health care would just be a gross understatement of what's going on," Rice said at the insurance trade group's monthly meeting.

Such innovation is necessary to address declining reimbursements from federal programs such as Medicare, along with a shift from reimbursing health care providers based on quantity toward one that pays providers for meeting quality measures, said Rice, recently named one of the Triad Business Journal's 10 to Watch for 2013. .

But the industry right now is "in that ugly phase where you're leaping from one cliff to another," Rice said.