The dreaded waiting room process won’t be going away just yet, but it might be getting better.In this digital age, telemedicine creates a faster, easily accessible path to medical care and long-term health outcomes. When you need the advice of a doctor, telemedicine means you are able to choose whether you drive to a doctor’s office or hospital or simply pick up your smartphone or log onto your computer for a consultation.
The end result is that telemedicine facilitates speed in diagnoses, increased access to care for remote populations, reduced care costs, and can even relieve physician shortages.
As we move forward, there are a few notable trends that support the belief that telemedicine won’t be slowing down anytime soon.
Here are a few signs that the demand for telemedicine is growing, as is its popularity and support:
1. Telemedicine meets the need and demand for new business models
More employers are seeing the benefit of telemedicine and almost everyone is seeing eye-to-eye on many of the benefits of telemedicine.
For example, consumer demand for healthcare convenience aligns with employer and health system scrutiny of today’s exorbitant emergency room costs. This, in turn, drives demand for a cost-effective and convenient care access model – one that works for all the parties involved.
Today, a great number of companies realize the benefit of their employees having access to healthcare professionals other than doctors and using virtual technology for basic healthcare needs.
But, simply adding video conferencing services to the current scheduled-care business model usually falls short of overall expectations in patient care. By launching full virtual care, a new business model is created for health systems to meet consumer demand and provide an alternative to emergency room or urgent care visits for low-acuity conditions.
Basically, it allows patients to take control of their healthcare options by leveraging smartphones, apps and related digital health technology to “see” their doctor and obtain treatment faster and easier.
Integrated telemedicine also has the ability to reach more patients in need of service, often in remote areas where seeing a doctor is challenged by logistics. By extending health services online, telemedicine allows providers to meet patients where they are anywhere, anytime.
2. Telemedicine delivers greater affordability for patients
As the Affordable Care Act goes into reconstruction or is dissolved, the result will be an influx of patients that are uninsured. Patients with employer-provided health insurance will probably be offered a high-deductible health plan as their only option.
Cost effective care quickly becomes a greater priority. According to a Willis Towers Watson internal analysis, telemedicine has the potential to exponentially lower health care costs, by as much as $6 billion annually, for U.S. employers. With 67% of employers offering telemedicine today and 90% expected to by 2018, telemedicine is an important, cost-effective choice in health care options for the future.
So, while most patients will experience an increase in the cost of their healthcare in the coming year, these burdens will fuel the need for patients to better manage their healthcare costs through accessing other options for care. It also boosts demand for:
- Improvements in patient education – including interactive online education tools.
- Greater cost transparency, so patients can make more informed healthcare decisions
Essentially, rather than make an in-person follow-up appointment, patients can take learning beyond the clinic to an online site that helps them digest long-term care instructions. Telemedicine also provides interactive follow-up sessions for chronic condition management and post-surgical care.
The cost savings can be dramatic. In fact, many hospitals (and insurance companies) are supporting the move to telemedicine because it has proven to reduce hospital stays and cut associated costs. In fact, the average cost of an online consultation with a doctor is about $50, versus an average of $80 for an in-office visit.
Telemedicine also offers a unique opportunity for health systems to offer strategic pricing options to specific patient populations. Strategic pricing initiatives will increase in popularity because patients will gain access to care, yet also be in greater control of their personal healthcare costs.
3. Telemedicine supports providers in meeting MACRA requirements
Passed in late 2016 with a bipartisan effort, MACRA legislation essentially ensured that healthcare models had to develop better cost-efficient protocols and quality metrics. It put system improvements in the spotlight.
What does it do? The main thing is it tackles key pain-points for many large hospital systems, MACRA provides greater opportunity for transparency and technology innovation in complex systems of health records and Medicare payment management.
MACRA is said to embrace entrepreneurial thinking, which creates a tremendous potential for systemic improvement. This includes a deeper technology integration in coding, EHR interoperability, and care delivery.
Other legislation is moving in the direction of increased support for telemedicine, for example:
- Many states have eased their scope-of-practice laws to allow easier access to nurse practitioners and physician assistants.
- Legislation supporting telemedicine is becoming more common, like the one signed by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey requiring health plans to pay for telemedicine state-wide beginning in 2018. This overrides the state’s current “parity” law said plans only had to pay for telemedicine in rural and medically underserved areas.
- Last year, when a group of senators introduced the CONNECT for Health Act, which would remove many of the restrictions to telehealth and remote monitoring under Medicare.
- More than twenty-eight states and Washington, D.C., have telemedicine payment parity laws, according to Politico.
4. This is the Age of Technology and Consumerism
Consumers expect more today from every product or service they pay for. Many people prefer to shop online for speed, ease and convince, so naturally, those consumers also want health care solutions to be just as easy and obtainable.
Advances in technology are also driving new entrants into today’s healthcare market. We have already seen several examples of this, like the opening of more walk-in urgent care centers and direct online consultation sites.
Major companies like Walmart, have plans be the largest primary care provider in the country. This means opening healthcare sites at their facilities well as using telemedicine to treat patients through virtual appointments.
Experts are predicting diverse, unprecedented growth in virtual healthcare services in the coming year, which will improve access to nurse practitioners, physician assistants and health professionals.
What the Future Holds for Telemedicine
Telemedicine will not be slowing down in growth anytime soon. Expect more integration by major health systems, which will be adopting telemedicine as a “need” rather than a “want”.
In the past virtual office visits were seen as a goal for the future to treat basic medical issues like the common cold, skin rashes or male impotence. But today, telemedicine is an important component in delivering efficient healthcare options to patients who must limit costs and gain easier access to care.
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