“Try it. You’ll like it.” Alka-Seltzer’s memorable 1972 tagline also describes patients’ reactions to telehealth over the past couple of years.
People have tried it. They’ve liked it. And as it scales, expect an evolution of video doctor visits coupled with new ways to pay, adding up to better outcomes for patients and practices.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) gave a glimpse of the sea change late last year, announcing that “medicare visits conducted through telehealth in 2020 increased 63-fold, from approximately 840,000 in 2019 to 52.7 million.”
Far from surprising, the figures confirm the bright future for telehealth that Synchrony Senior Vice President and General Manager of Health Systems Shannon Burke sees forming up right now.
As she told PYMNTS, “the adoption of telehealth is one of the silver linings, if we’re looking for one, from the pandemic. I certainly predict that all age groups will continue to access and really demand it. It’s going to be a patient satisfaction item where we, as consumers of healthcare, really want to receive our care this way for a number of reasons.”
Those reasons now revolve around convenience, security and cost savings, and it’s a strong three-legged foundation on which new telehealth services are being designed, along with better ways to pay for and afford it, with insurance coverage still being haggled over.
In one vertical after the next, the pandemic exposed weak spots and inefficiencies in healthcare delivery for which we already had fixes — telehealth has been around for over a decade — but it took an avoidance of personal contact and the need to see lots of patients quickly to set it in motion.
“The backdrop is that health systems and providers of healthcare are under financial pressure. We’re seeing their costs go up and their revenues go down,” Burke said. “Telehealth allows providers to see more patients because it’s incredibly efficient. But those average payments for care visits go down. Certainly, managing that and changing processes and ways to reach out and manage the flow of care is going to be important.”
See also: Digital Payments, Financing Help Healthcare Practices Focus on Patients — Not Billing
Reimbursement Redux
With the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency set to expire on July 14, Medicare is a telehealth bellwether, and its changes allowing beneficiaries to receive telehealth services for mental/behavioral health care in-home in any part of the U.S. was an inflection point.
Still undecided are issues of payment parity for in-office versus telehealth visits, which is being decided state by state until a final ruling from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) cements telehealth’s role and price. In turn, Burke said, that will lead to new demands on employer-provided health insurance and the federal government. Eventually, it will help overcome one of the biggest barriers to adoption: difficulty getting reimbursement.
“Making sure that the care itself continues to be reimbursed, getting the technology, and then trying to manage new financial workflows associated with telehealth and remote services are remaining challenges,” she said.
Ongoing debates around fees and reimbursement in an inflationary economy may make a newly inquisitive population of patient-consumers more concerned about affording the telehealth services they’ve come to like, bringing solutions like CareCredit into the discussion.
As was found in “The Payment Cure: How Improving Billing Experiences Impacts Patient Loyalty,” a PYMNTS report with research supported by CareCredit based on a survey of over 3,500 adult healthcare consumers, there’s a pandemic-era mindset that demands choice and flexibility.
Patients increasingly view themselves as consumers who have a variety of choices for how they get healthcare and pay for it, the study noted. They’re increasingly empowered by their ability to choose providers and services, online and offline, and now they’re looking for the same level of choice about how they pay.
Burke’s view aligns.
“We, as patients and consumers, want to be able to receive telehealth care. Those that are going to win are going to embrace it and continue to evolve it,” she said. “There’s going to be new technology and different ways to do it. It’s similar to secure emailing your doctor versus having to call them, or patient portals or EMRs that have really taken long periods of time to come to pass but are now expected by patient-consumers.”
Get the study: The Payment Cure: How Improving Billing Experiences Impacts Patient Loyalty
Healthcare Financing Steps Up
As telehealth use mushroomed over the past two years, its strengths and limitations became clear. The next phase involves introduction of digital therapeutics to deliver actual treatment during telehealth sessions, practices incorporating the tech, and new ways to pay.
Mental/behavioral health is one obvious area, which explains why HHS singled out cognitive therapy in its exceptions for ongoing telehealth use.
Burke sees the logic, saying: “Certainly mental health, behavioral health services is a big area for telehealth, as the research is showing. It makes complete sense because, in many cases, when you need access to mental health and behavioral health, it’s urgent. You need it quickly. You need to be able to do it where you are, and you can’t wait four weeks.”
She added that remote locales and “healthcare deserts” in rural areas are also key use cases, but the biggest opportunity may come in routine care, paired with health-monitoring wearables. Voicing the opinion of millions of others, Burke said telehealth is ideal for when you’re sick — but not sick enough that you want to haul yourself into the doctor’s office.
“I don’t want to plug Apple, but your Apple Watch can tell your doctor a lot about you,” she said. “I started using telehealth in the pandemic, and after that experience you don’t ever want to go back to the doctor’s office for routine things.”
Healthcare is pricey, and convenience has its costs. CareCredit’s financing solution is accepted by more than 250,000 medical and veterinary practices, and Burke said having that specialized line of credit is making life easier — and more affordable — for growing telehealth ranks.
“CareCredit wants to provide our cardholders with the comfort and security of knowing that they have a credit card in their toolbox. It’s pre-care, point of care, and post-care for whatever costs they or their family incurs. And we always include our furry four-legged family members,” Burke said.
“Our approach is total patient financing with our partners, and that comes in a lot of flavors. Along the whole care journey, patients have access to financing, with CareCredit as part of their strategy for how they’re going to pay for the care they want and need,” she added.