What’s on Union's research and education agendas for H2 2025
- Amanda Berra & Yulan Egan
- Jul 16
- 10 min read
Welcome to our sneak peek into some of the major things we’re studying across the remainder of this year. Here, we’re about to break down the WHAT and the WHY of these topics as well as HOW we’ll be covering them. It’s both a preview and a call for input/feedback. If you have thoughts on these topics, suggestions on avenues of inquiry, or want to put a thumb on the scale to dial up the time and attention you think one of these topics should get, we want to hear from you! So without further ado, here's what's on Union's research and education agendas for H2 2025.
12 things on Union's research and education agendas for H2 2025
Policy, policy, and…more policy
While healthcare wasn’t the top issue on the 2024 campaign trail, it has quickly emerged as a major policy priority for Trump 2.0 and the current Congress. Between the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) campaign, and sweeping commitments the administration has made on issues such as drug pricing, prior auth, and more? There’s a lot to unpack.
Specific angles we’ll be exploring:
What the OBBBA means for various industry sectors
Which MAHA goals have advanced most quickly vs. which have stalled
How this administration is thinking about AI generally, and in healthcare specifically
Reality check: what to actually make of recent commitments re: drug pricing and prior auth
The “sleeper” policy issues that aren’t grabbing headlines, but are no less notable: changes to the Medicare drug price negotiation program, shifts on value-based care, and more
Where you can access this research:
Our July Board Briefing webinar (on July 24th, from 1-2 PM ET, open to all): Register here.
Our upcoming fall refresh of our State of Healthcare (for members only); current version available here.
Members can also attend one of our fall insights summits, where this will be a major topic of discussion. We’ll be in Chicago on September 25th and in DC on November 6th. More details—and instructions on how to register—can be found here.
Current challenges and opportunities facing medical groups
Between the ongoing shift toward employment/corporate ownership and the recent retrenchment on alternative primary care models, the medical group space has seen plenty of structural change in recent years. This topic is also one that we’ve gotten a lot of direct questions about from members, who are interested in going deeper on what is (and isn’t) changing when it comes to best-in-class performance for physician groups.
Specific angles we’ll be exploring:
How the definition of a “high-performing” medical group has/hasn’t shifted
The growing tug of war between the allure of single specialty vs. multispecialty models
How physician employers are looking to redefine their employee value propositions—and reconcile the widening generational gap between younger and older physicians
How innovative groups are embracing AI
Where you can see this research:
We’ll be publishing a members only report on this topic in Q3; see our current members only slide decks and reports here.
For a preview of our early thinking on this space, members can access our ready-to-use slide deck on the “State of the Physician” landscape here.
Members who attend our Chicago insight summit on September 25th will participate in a facilitate discussion on the future of primary care. Registration details here.
The financial state of (and outlook for) health systems
2024 appeared to be a stabilization year for the hospital sector as median margins rose due to increases in patient volume and acuity, alongside a slowdown in what had been historically high labor and supply costs. But that (relative, modest) stability appears to have been short lived, as increases in both labor and non-labor costs have surged past revenue gains across the first half of 2025. So we’ll be delving more into the current state of hospital margins, as well as the future financial outlook for this sector.
Specific angles we’ll be exploring:
What’s driving the dip in performance in 2025
How the trend of “margin divergence” is playing out—i.e. what do median margins obscure/NOT tell us about this sector?
How larger structural shifts in the industry—demographic changes, new policies (e.g. the OBBBA), the uptick in payer denials, etc.—are shaping the future outlook for health system financials
Where you can see this research:
Our August Board Briefing (on August 21st from 1-2 PM ET, open to all): Register here.
Key player profiles: A deep dive into the "Big Five" national health plans
Last year, we published a series of profiles on the major vertical consolidators in the healthcare industry—and those profiles ended up being some of our most popular pieces for 2024. This year, we’re going deep on the big national insurers (many of which are also vertical consolidators) amid rising financial pressure on the health insurance sector. Expect to see in-depth analysis of how each of the big national plans is responding to that pressure, and what those moves mean for others across the industry.
Specific angles we’ll be exploring:
How MLR performance evolves across the course of 2025
Major moves each of the players is making to maintain profitability
Which plans continue to see stabilization (after a solid showing, on average, in Q1 2025)—and which don’t
Where insurers continue to place their bets vs. pull back when it comes to both insurance and non-insurance lines of business
Where you can see this research:
Members who attend our DC insight summit on November 6th will participate in a facilitated discussion on this topic. Registration details here.
Our October Board Briefing (on October 23rd from 1-2 PM ET, open to all): Register here.
Keep an eye on the blog for quarterly round-ups on insurer performance following each round of earnings calls/reports. Read our Q1 summary here.
Future of growth
With many sectors seeing margins slide simultaneously, players across the industry are playing defense to prevent further erosion in profitability. Insurers are dialing up denials and rightsizing their portfolios, health systems are doubling down on revenue cycle performance and looking for opportunities to reduce both clinical and non-clinical labor costs, and life sciences companies are looking to technology to reduce R&D costs. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t still pockets of growth across the industry. We’ll be looking into the areas that ARE experiencing growth—whether it’s the rapid uptake of GLP-1s and AI-enabled technologies, or the slow and steady drumbeat of site-of-care shifts/home-based care models.
Specific angles we’ll be exploring:
What are 5-10 areas across the industry that can expect future growth?
Where is growth likely to be most rapid, versus more incremental?
Which industry players are best positioned to take advantage of each of these opportunities?
Where you can see this research:
This will be an agenda item at both of our fall insight summits for members. We’ll be in Chicago on September 25th and in DC on November 6th. More details—and instructions on how to register—can be found here.
Our September Board Briefing webinar (on September 18th from 1-2 PM ET, open to all) will preview a snapshot of this research: Register here.
Employer landscape
This is an evergreen focus area for us, one that we tend to tackle in Q4 of each year as employers report out on their medical trends for the current year and release their projections for the year following. 2025 will be no different—we’ll round up all the projections, pull out key themes, reconcile any points of differentiation, and share some first-hand accounts of how the employers we talk to are approaching health benefits given the latest shifts in spending.
Specific angles we’ll be exploring:
Whether expectations of a surge in spending in 2025 came to fruition
How employers project medical trend will look in 2026
The relative weight employers are placing on benefit enhancements vs. cost control
Which health benefits strategies are gaining traction—and which are losing steam
Where you can see this research:
Digital Health
Because it has so many use cases, digital health is a pan-industry topic. But, it's not the easiest domain to get/stay up to speed on. That’s why we make a point of repeatedly covering it our Strategy Bootcamp Series.
Specific angles we’ll be exploring:
Revisiting the typology of different digital health areas and solution types
Major market trends and patterns – overall and for key subsets of the digital health world
Clarification of and update on digital health’s frequently squishy/opaque business models
A look at the fast-moving policy environment
Where you can see this research:
This Thursday, July 17, from 1-2 PM ET, we will be doing a live 60-minute session in our member only Strategy Bootcamp series getting everyone (back) up to speed. Union members can register here.
Members can also access a recording and the deck after the fact—but joining live will be way more fun!
Healthcare AI
It doesn’t matter what your role in healthcare is—we all need to be able to navigate strategic conversations about healthcare AI.
Specific angles we’ll be exploring:
It's a core mandate for Union to provide ongoing coverage of the full field of strategy-level AI trends and issues. That means we already cover, and will be revisiting, essential concepts, language, what different players are doing, investment and ROI trends, and more.
Note in H2 we will be purposely dividing our attention across both clinical and administrative uses (and definitely not overlooking the gray area that involves both!)
In the coming months we are putting a special focus on how the brewing AI-driven "bot war” is strategically impacting interactions between payers and providers
Where you can see this research:
We will be covering AI tends in practically all our research deliverables, including the policy update in the July Board Briefing webinar (open to all): Register here.
You will also see AI coverage in our upcoming fall refresh of our State of Healthcare (for members only); current version available here.
For Union members only, next month – Thursday August 28 from 1-2 PM ET, we will be doing a full update on our last Strategy Bootcamp regarding healthcare AI. The previous version is accessible in PPT deck here and a recording here. But please join us live for what is sure to be a compelling new discussion in August. Register here.
Policy trends—through a cancer care lens
We are currently zeroing in on the intersection between (1) the overall healthcare environment/strategy trends and (2) trends specific to the cancer care space. The resulting deliverable will be of particular relevance to anyone working in cancer care. However, we also think the compare-and-contrast between general and specialty-specific trends is actually good for everyone to consume, including those whose work is not specific to cancer care. Because, it’s a tremendously useful reality check for anyone trying to understand the overall healthcare strategic/economic/policy/tech picture.
Specific angles we’ll be exploring
How general healthcare policy changes (everything from Medicaid disenrollment to research funding cuts) are affecting cancer care specifically
The likely effect of recent changes to Medicare drug pricing reform on cancer care therapeutics
How overall pressures on provider and insurer core economics are manifesting in changes to cancer care reimbursement and delivery models
Where you can see this research
We will be previewing some of this work at the Clinical Pathways Congress on Friday, September 5 in Boston – if you will be in the area you should come see it there! More information here.
We will make sure members have additional opportunities to see this work, but they are currently TBD. Please reach out to us with questions or requests—email us at info@unionhealthcareinsight.com.
Revenue cycle
We simply can’t have any conversations about hospital and health system financial performance or insurer profitability without putting revenue cycle under the microscope. As margin performance wanes yet again, recent survey data shows that some non-typical c-suite positions, including CSOs and CEOs, are intently focused on improvements in revenue cycle performance as a strategic imperative. When cash acceleration becomes a focal point for strategy, that’s not just a signal, but perhaps a flying red flag.
Specific angles we’ll be exploring
How providers will need to react to payer’s deployment of AI
Why a renewed focus on patient collections is not just warranted but critical
How revenue cycle leadership and workforce will need to adapt to emerging imperatives and technology shifts
Where you can see this research
Our October Strategy Boot Camp (members only), on Thursday, October 2 from 1-2 p.m. Members, register here.
Our upcoming Revenue Cycle Summit in Nashville on August 7th. Invite only—please reach out to our SVP of Research, Eric Fontana at eric@unionheatlhcareinsight.com for more information.
Quality
This fall, we will be adding a new Strategy Bootcamp module on the topic of healthcare quality.
Specific angles we’ll be exploring:
Core concepts in safety, quality, experience, clinical standardization (etc.) — we will go around the full world of quality domains
Current quality trends, major players, and issues—from tech to reimbursement
Challenges and opportunities in making ROI cases with quality
Where you can see this research:
Union members only, please tune into the live version of the Strategy Bootcamp on Quality. We will launching it with live expert conversation on Thursday, October 30 from 1-2 PM easter. Register here.
The world of pediatrics
Just as children’s physiology is meaningfully different from that of adults, pediatrics also has a unique strategic, economic, and policy issue set compared to the rest of healthcare world.
Specific angles we’ll be exploring
Major players in the world of pediatrics, especially children’s hospitals and the market structure/strategic issue set affecting pediatricians
Special issues in pediatric reimbursement and policy
Pediatric implications of MAHA and the OBBBA
Where you can see this research
We'll be touching on the MAHA focus on children's health for our policy update in the July Board Briefing webinar (open to all): Register here.
Keep an eye on the blog for deep dives on the implications of the OBBBA and MAHA for pediatrics. Subscribe to our mailing list to make sure you never miss a post!
Union members only, please tune into the live version of the Strategy Bootcamp on World of Pediatrics. We will launching it with live expert conversation on Thursday, November 20 from 1-2 PM eastern. Register here.
A call for input: Union's research and education agendas for H2 2025
Any and all feedback is welcome! Reach out to our Chief Research Officer, Yulan Egan, at yulan@unionhealthcareinsight.com and our Chief Education Officer, Amanda Berra, amanda@unionhealthcareinsight.com.
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