Happy Tuesday, Hospitalogists!
Today I'm sharing 10 healthcare consulting reports worth the read. If your firm makes a great report that I'm missing please respond so that I can read it!
Enjoy! |
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10 Healthcare Consulting Reports Worth Reading |
I do my best to synthesize the biggest reports in healthcare and a lot of them are, plain and simply, noise with no additive value.
So, where do health system leaders turn when they need broader, more complex marketing, operational, and financial insights? Here are 10 of my must-read consulting reports for the year and a quick shout to the firms behind them. |
I know Michael very well at Health Data Atlas and they do great work in mapping out complex healthcare relationships among provider organizations and affiliates, and they do so in a very high fidelity way. They understand the data deeply and can work with you for countless strategic use cases across service line expansion, M&A, market intelligence, and more. Couldn't recommend them enough. |
Kaufman Hall holds deep expertise in hospital & healthcare consulting and supports clients with strategy and business transformation, financial planning and data analytics, treasury and capital markets, mergers and acquisitions, clinical solutions, and revenue and operations improvement. They provide thorough insights, especially with quarterly and monthly summaries of hospital M&A activity, profitability, utilization patterns, and physician subsidy costs. The monthly flash report is a must-read for me. |
It wouldn't be a complete list without Advisory Board. The Optum-owned consultancy and advisory group is a gold standard among hospital executives when it comes to insights and consulting work. Their outlooks and presentations are polished and great for any board deck. |
Trilliant Health is another analytics platform that provides demand forecasts, consumer preferences, brand awareness, and site-of-care shifts by local market. Their platform helps providers and vendors understand market dynamics and patient acquisition levers, down to the ZIP or county level, and the firm is always updating their platform with AI-native functions and research to boot. |
- 1 Must-Read: My series with After Transparency on the state of price transparency and negotiation best practices (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3)
After Transparency works exclusively with provider organizations to help equip them with accurate, market-level pricing data to allow for more data-driven rate negotiation with payors - along with a multitude of other strategic and financial considerations that knowing your market's pricing dynamic unlocks (M&A, de novo site considerations, enterprise wide pricing strategies). |
Over the years since I've worked at VMG Health, they've become a one-stop healthcare consulting shop across all key healthcare functions. VMG's expertise lives in valuation and M&A, like the report above. Keep an eye out their 2025 Annual M&A Report coming soon, which is their flagship report. |
I've never seen more logos or more dense research than I have with Ziegler's digital health whitepapers. Every time one of them releases it comes stockpiled with a plethora of information on current trends and issues along with companies involved in those spaces. |
The team at Unlock Health can do the data-driven dirty work for you to A) understand where your revenue is coming from (revenue and payor mix), B) dive into operating and market share data to identify and target the right patient populations given your offerings or service lines, and C) develop and execute a thoughtful marketing strategy more confidently around smarter data-driven decisions. Their State of Managed Care Report is the perfect argument for why 2025 was the year the affordability crisis became impossible to ignore. |
Definitive Healthcare is obviously one of the most well known analytics platform out there. They're a global healthcare data, analytics, and intelligence company that provides data on healthcare organizations, clinicians, claims, consumers, and experts. Their proprietary datasets (like the one referenced above) include reference and affiliation data, all-payor and prescription claims, executive and expert information, and more. You get what you pay for! |
Featuring healthcare analytics from Sg2 (another Vizient company) and the healthcare consulting expertise of Kaufman Hall, Vizient's annual trend report is a great dive for the space. The tag on their annual report sums up their focus: New margin math. Speaking of Sg2, with Sg2's market analytics, clinical and operational data, forecasting, and expert intelligence, healthcare leaders can gain visibility into patient flow, market size, and competitive position, drill down into granular service line details to do things like forecast outpatient migration, identify market winners and losers, understand how policy and new market entrants may alter demand, and translate national healthcare trends into market-specific strategies. |
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Members have access to a curated deal flow of startups with no commitments. Invest only in the companies that interest you. Get the details here. |
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My favorite reads & resources from the week |
- Read: McKinsey & Company analysis argues we're on the brink of a true operational breakthrough in revenue cycle management through agentic AI and its ability to autonomously make decisions and execute complex processes across back-end RCM workflows. Early modeling suggests this shift could cut cost-to-collect by 30–60%, accelerate cash flow, improve payment accuracy, and free revenue cycle teams to focus on higher-value work rather than manual administrative tasks. Read more about how agentic AI offers a credible path from reactive processes to a more efficient, adaptive, and nearly "touchless" revenue cycle.
- Breakdown: What's happening with managed care is creating a ripple effect that providers must get ready for now. Read my key takeaways from the new 2026 Managed Care Trends and Predictions report from Unlock Health.*
- Resource: Trilliant Health's analysis examines how middlemen, such as PBMs, GPOs, third-party administrators, and insurance brokers, have become central yet controversial players in U.S. healthcare. Intended originally to help connect manufacturers, payors, employers and providers and streamline administrative complexity, these intermediaries now wield outsized influence over which drugs, services, and plans reach patients and at what price. They aggregate purchasing power and manage claims, but the report highlights how their fee structures, contracting rules, and incentives can obscure true costs, complicate transparency, and contribute to systemic inefficiencies that ripple through employers, providers and patients alike. Read the full report here.
- Roundtable: Don't miss the February Roundtable for Plus Members, February 27 at 1pm ET. Register here.
*This read is brought to you by one of my brand partners who help make this newsletter possible! |
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I hope you enjoyed! Reply to let me know your thoughts.
– Blake |
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I'm building a community of leaders in strategy, finance, and ops at hospitals and health systems to help us connect, learn, and grow together. |
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