Virtual Care Models Revolutionizing Healthcare Delivery

Parks Associates recently released a study highlighting the potential of virtual care models to transform healthcare delivery. The study identifies virtual primary care and virtual-first integrated care models as emerging approaches that leverage the efficiencies of telehealth and health device data collection to produce improved care outcomes.

According to the study, major insurers such as UnitedHealthGroup, Humana, and Aetna, among others, are already launching telehealth-first plans to their member bases. At the same time, top telehealth companies like Doctor On Demand, Teladoc, and AmWell are entering the market, providing integrative care that covers chronic condition management, mental health, dermatology, and specialist referrals and visits.

The rise of virtual care models is in response to increased burnout among care providers and an ongoing shortage of care professionals. With connected health devices playing a key role in this transformation, clinicians now have access to insights into patients' health status that they cannot discover by questionnaires or conversations alone.

The study also found that independent practitioners' share of the telehealth market is declining. Many independent practitioners lack the operational capacity to offer sufficient telehealth services and may struggle to offer HIPAA-compliant services that integrate with their EMR systems.

While nationwide telehealth services have seen the least impact from the telehealth market slowdown, the study suggests that demographics continue to be a key factor in determining channel selection, with older consumers much more likely to choose local physicians.

In addition, the study reports that CVS and Teladoc continue to expand their share of the telehealth market, while in the virtual therapy space, TalkSpace has overtaken the lead from BetterHelp. Among households who have used telehealth services, 18% report using CVS Video, followed by Teledoc and DoctonDemand.

Virtual care models offer an efficient and effective means of healthcare delivery that can provide significant benefits to patients and care providers alike. As virtual care continues to grow, companies must be willing to embrace a variety of business models to support the entire healthcare ecosystem, including independent practitioners and small-to-midsize providers.

Parks Associates has studied the connected health markets for more than 15 years. We would love to help you better understand the impact of technology on the healthcare markets. Contact me or any of our team with questions.