INSIGHT: Telehealth: Changing the Way People Access Quality Health Care

As the telehealth industry continues to grow, it will change how patients find healthcare, wellness coaching, and even personal training. The majority of adults in the United States now have access to the internet through a smartphone, computer, or tablet. This large market continues to adopt virtual care, consulting with doctors without having to leave home.

Revolutionizing Weight Loss

Communication with professionals is integral to patients who are trying to improve their health by losing weight. Whether in preparation for surgery or for overall health, professionals can help map a road to wellness by monitoring a patient’s habits with telehealth services. Keeping patients motivated and inspired is key to ensuring positive outcomes. Telehealth services can help trainers or physicians set goals for patients and keep track of accomplishments.

One study found that the use of pedometers in telehealth offered patients a sense of autonomy that contributed to their success. By combining the use of wearable tech with telehealth, healthcare providers and wellness professionals are able to monitor their patients in real time. This approach improves outcomes and is convenient and empowering to patients and professionals.

Results are not the only benefit to using telehealth for weight loss. It is also extremely cost-efficient in comparison to face-to-face consultation and training. For patients that are not covered by health insurance, meeting with a registered dietitian can cost up to $100 for only a single 40-60-minute consultation. Patients with insurance still need to pay a copay. A personal trainer typically costs between $60-$150 per session out of pocket. Although working with a trainer face-to-face can be helpful, it is much more expensive than simply consulting with a phone or tablet. Telehealth services can be paid for by individual use or with a yearly membership plan. Both options are cost-effective ways for weight-loss patients to get the guidance they need.

Telehealth allows weight-loss patients to access health professionals in a range of services at an affordable price. The American Medical Association has recently recognized the value of these services. The organization is allowing certain medical professionals to easily bill health payers for consultations. As telehealth services gain acceptance and recognition, weight-loss patients who have difficulty accessing services for geographic, financial, and medical reasons will be able to have access to the care they need. With approximately 300,000 fitness trainers in the United States, a fitness revolution led by telehealth services could be in the near future.

Empowering Working Parents to Care for Their Children

As the use of mobile apps continues to grow, health-related tools for parents have addressed the increased need for convenient healthcare solutions. Because of the demands that working parents face, they are at times unable to reach their doctor’s office when their children are sick. This situation is projected to worsen with an anticipated shortage of primary care doctors, increasingly crowded Emergency Departments, and the continued rising costs of healthcare.

Demand for convenient and affordable healthcare is especially high for parents in rural areas where accessing care poses an even greater challenge. Because of the limited availability of doctors and specialty services, rural families receive lower quality care and have worse outcomes compared with those living in more populated areas.

Telehealth is an effective way to close the rural vs. urban disparity in quality of care. The web-based services give overworked parents a simple way to quickly address their healthcare needs. For instance, a single mother can find out if a child’s cough might be the first tickles of the common cold or something as serious as an upper respiratory infection. By simply picking up the phone, parents can find out if a fever, ear pain, or skin abrasion may require urgent attention or nothing more than a little extra care at home.

Without access to convenient healthcare or telehealth, some parents turn to Google or WebMD for answers. But this can lead to more questions than answers, and too often they risk encountering unreliable sources that offer potentially dangerous “remedies.” By adopting telehealth services, parents gain access to a safe, convenient, and affordable source of health care for their children.

Telehealth for Rehabilitation

After being discharged from the hospital, many patients face a difficult rehab process. The process can last anywhere from months, to an entire lifetime. Recovering from a stroke necessitates frequent rehabilitation sessions that can quickly become costly and demanding for caregivers. Because of incapacitation, patients are likely to find travel to a health care facility difficult or impossible, regardless of whether they are in an urban or rural setting.

One survey of over 20 million rehabilitation sessions found that stroke recovery patients were able to receive therapy five times more often using telehealth services. These convenient and more frequent sessions were linked to a 20 percent improvement in cognitive and language processing speed after just 100 exercises. By the time patients had completed 500 exercises, the improvement in processing speed had jumped to 80 percent. The convenience and ease of access that telehealth services lend are ideal for the frequent and thorough care that stroke rehabilitation patients need.

The implications of this study suggest that other sorts of rehab patients can benefit from telehealth services. Patients who require rehabilitation following surgeries are able to consult with physical therapists or physicians. Healthcare professionals benefit from being able to monitor patients’ progress in real time. Telehealth is thus positioned to revolutionize rehabilitation in healthcare.

Reducing Costs for Employers While Improving Outcomes

The Willis Towers Watson 22^nd Annual Best Practices in Health Care Employer Survey found that nearly 78 percent of large employers recommend that employees use telehealth as a preferred healthcare delivery option to replace expensive office or clinic visits for routine illnesses. The survey also found that employers expect healthcare costs to rise by 5.5 percent in 2018, an increase of nearly a whole percentage point from last year. For patients insured through their employers, telehealth is an affordable and convenient option.

Telehealth visits for dozens of the most common conditions can reduce costs significantly for employers – especially those that are self-insured. In fact, some experts determined these savings could be up to $472 per episode of care. Employees benefit, too, with no wait times, lower co-pays and no loss of valuable time at work or home. For uninsured employees who cannot access healthcare benefits, using telehealth as a primary means of care can provide significant savings in out-of-pocket medical expenses and peace of mind. Companies with a large number of part-time workers can now offer a health-care service that is affordable, reduces absenteeism, and is convenient for employee’s lifestyles.

Up until recently, it had been nearly impossible to offer telehealth as a standalone benefit. However, small employers can now also offer telehealth as a voluntary benefit, reward, perk or as part of a wellness program within the company and to all employees, regardless of their employment or insurance status. For small employers seeking to reduce costs, telehealth services can improve outcomes and overall wellness for employees while saving money and time.

Employees can enroll in a telehealth program without the need for an insurance plan or as a complement to one. Select telehealth companies provide discounted group rates via an employer, through incentive and reward platforms or directly through the telehealth provider’s website. By providing a service that is centered around convenience, employers can take better care of their workers while reducing costs per employee. Telehealth services are set to improve and simplify healthcare for payers and employees alike while improving their health – and the health of the business.

Telehealth’s Top Selling Points

1. Convenient access to care

Employees can simply login in from their phone, tablet or computer at any time and request a medical consult for themselves or a family member with a board certified doctor in as little as 10 minutes. The doctor can diagnose the patient’s symptoms and recommend treatment, which can in include a prescription being delivered to a nearby pharmacy.

2. Broader access to care

Not only can employees have a general medical consultation with a telehealth physician, but they may also be eligible for access to specialty services, including mental and behavioral health, dermatology, smoking cessation, STD screening, second opinion services and more.

Look for a telehealth partner that offers bundled telehealth service to include access to a 24/7 Nurse Advice Line and the ability to email medical specialists questions 24/7 at no charge.

3. Cost savings

With telehealth visits costing as low as $15 and generally no more than $45, employees can see significant cost savings versus in-person visits. This is especially true if those visits are to urgent care or emergency departments for minor illnesses, where costs can easily get into the hundreds or even thousands of dollars for a minor illness.

4. Near zero wait time

With access to a large network of on-demand physicians, patients can simply click to make a consult request on their phone, tablet or computer and get a call back or video-chat back from a doctor in less than 10 minutes. Speaking to a nurse typically takes two minutes by phone. Expect a guaranteed email response from a doctor within 24 hours, although typical responses occur within hours and sometimes minutes.

5. Doing the best for every employee

With rising healthcare premium costs, increasing deductibles for full-time employees and lack of healthcare options for part-time employees, offering a telehealth option is one way that companies can help reduce the burden, show they care, and make a difference in the lives of all employees.

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Joey Truscelli is the chief executive officer of Hello Alvin, a nationwide provider of telehealth services. He can be reached at joeyt@helloalvin.com.