Healthcare C-Suite Pain Points and How They're Planning for What's Next in 2025
In 2025, the healthcare industry stands at a critical inflection point. The nation’s leading hospitals and health systems are navigating an increasingly complex environment marked by financial uncertainty, policy turbulence, workforce disruption, and technology transformation.
At The Health Management Academy (THMA), we partner directly with executives from the top health systems to understand the challenges they’re facing, the strategic pivots they’re making, and the resources they need most.
This article outlines the most pressing healthcare C-suite pain points and explores how executives, hospitals, and healthcare organizations are planning for what's next.
Margin Pressure: A Top Pain Point for Health System Leaders
Despite signals of improvement in select high-performing hospitals, operating margins across the healthcare sector remain volatile. Inflationary pressures, reimbursement constraints, and rising labor costs are forcing executive leaders to reexamine legacy cost structures. For many C-suite executives, the challenge is not just about revenue growth, it’s about achieving sustainable, long-term financial resilience.
Strategic areas of focus include:
Redesigning site-of-care strategies to optimize spend
Shifting from fixed-cost to variable-cost care models
Exploring provider partnerships that create mutual value
CEOs and CFOs are now prioritizing margin recovery as a core part of their care delivery and operational strategy.
Healthcare Policy Volatility: A Constant Concern for Health System Leaders
Healthcare leaders are facing an unpredictable policy environment, marked by proposed reforms to site-neutral payments, 340B, and ongoing debates around Medicaid expansion. These shifts have strategic and financial consequences for provider organizations, directly impacting reimbursement rates, access to care, and long-term planning.
The healthcare C-suite has responded by:
Embedding agility into enterprise planning cycles
Seeking real-time policy updates and scenario modeling tools
Forming internal cross-functional task forces to monitor federal and state-level developments
Health System executives prefer partners who understand the policy implications and can speak to their impact, whether it’s related to capital planning, service line strategy, or community health initiatives.
Labor Instability & Workforce Pressures
Across hospitals, the workforce crisis remains one of the most urgent pain points. From clinical burnout to nursing shortages, C-suite leaders are being forced to rethink the way care teams are structured and supported. The problem is not isolated to HR as it’s a strategic threat that touches quality, access, and cost.
Healthcare executives are now:
Investing in technology to alleviate staff burden and reduce friction
Exploring new care delivery models, including virtual nursing and team-based care
Using predictive analytics to forecast staffing gaps and optimize scheduling
The challenge is twofold: managing the labor crisis while redesigning roles to support a more sustainable model of care.
Technology Investments: Proving the ROI
Innovation continues to reshape healthcare, but C-suite health system leaders are becoming more discerning. From AI and automation to digital front doors and remote monitoring, every technology decision must now justify its cost and prove tangible return on investment.
Key pain points providing for opportunities related to technology include:
Ensuring interoperability with existing EHR systems
Aligning technology with clinical and operational outcomes
Avoiding vendor fatigue by identifying high-value, high-impact solutions
Healthcare executives are referring to their partner vendors for strategic input, post-implementation support, and a clear path to measurable impact.
Challenges in Access to Care
One of the most difficult issues facing healthcare today is access. Leaders are trying to address persistent disparities in care availability, long wait times, and geographic barriers, all while navigating rising patient expectations.
Health system executives have been exploring:
Expanding virtual care and hybrid delivery models
Partnering with non-traditional players to close access gaps
Rethinking the “where” and “how” of care delivery to meet patients where they are
Hospitals and provider organizations must balance equity, efficiency, and scalability. Solutions that address patient access are increasingly becoming strategic imperatives.
A Shift Toward Strategic Partnerships
Across the board, healthcare system executives are searching for strategic partnerships that create mutual value – organizations that bring relevant insights, understand the unique needs of hospitals, and offer customized solutions that align with long-term goals.
Healthcare organizations and industry leaders who successfully navigate this shift are:
Equipping their teams with persona-specific CXO intelligence.
Approaching relationships with empathy and contextual awareness
Demonstrating real-world value, not just product features
To create an environment where these strategic conversations take place, THMA offers Executive Convening Forums in spring and fall each year. These invite-only forums bring together C-suite executives from the top health systems with a select group of industry leaders for candid, high-trust conversations.
THMA’s Executive Convening programs foster strategic dialogue in intimate, peer-centric environments, making space for the issues that matter most: care transformation, margin strategy, access equity, technology investment, and workforce design. When executives from both sides of the healthcare equation come together to share, listen, and align, new pathways to value emerge.
About The Health Management Academy (THMA)
Since 1998, The Health Management Academy has been the trusted community for executive leaders shaping the future of healthcare. With over 2,000 LHS Executive relationships, 600+ C-suite members from the nation’s most influential hospitals and 200+ industry organizations, THMA delivers the insights, relationships, and strategic resources industry executives need to succeed when partnering with the nation’s largest health systems.
Through proprietary research, executive convening, and year-round intelligence, THMA equips industry leaders to address healthcare’s toughest challenges, from policy volatility to access gaps and labor shortages. Learn more about how THMA supports industry executives year-round to drive meaningful change and apply for consideration to join our exclusive membership while we still have space available.