How has telehealth adoption changed following the pandemic and what are the implications for the future of telehealth? Join market research expert and owner of Way to Goal, Doreen Amatelli-Clark to talk about her latest findings from her COVID-19 study, covering surveys and in-depth interviews with doctors and healthcare practitioners from around the world. Doreen will discuss:
- Physician telehealth adoption before and during the early pandemic
- How providers are using telehealth today
- Physicians’ predictions for the impact of telehealth in the coming years
- Considerations and implications for
- Medicare, insurance coverage and legal policies
- Bio-tech, home exams, and remote patient monitoring
Slides
Q&A
Q: Do you know the patient mix? Medicare / Medicaid, urban / rural, post-acute vs chronic care?
Yes, the rural vs urban breakout is included in our presentation near the end.
Our Medicare/Medicaid vs Private Insurance and patient mix breakouts are below.
Insurance Breakdown, n=55
| Geriatric (predominantly Medicare) | 2 |
| Majority Medicare/Medicaid | 15 |
| Half and Half | 9 |
| Majority Commercial Insurance | 23 |
| Predominantly all Private Insurance | 6 |
Patient Mix, n=55
| Hardly See New Patients (5%>) | 8 |
| Chronic Patients (90-80%)/ New Patients (10-20%) | 39 |
| Chronic Patients (70-60%)/ New Patients (30-40%) | 6 |
| Predominantly New Patients/Urgent Care Setting (85%<) | 2 |
Q: How has Covid-19 changed the projections for the value of telehealth either domestically or worldwide?
COVID-19 has absolutely changed the projections for the value of telehealth both domestically and worldwide.
This blog article states:
According to a recent market intelligence study published by BIS Research, the global telemedicine market is estimated at $21.55 billion in 2019 and is expected to reach $123 billion by the end of 2030. The market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 17.66% during the forecast period 2020-2030.
I also found this downloadable report for a fee with market projections is in the link below.
https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/telehealth-market-forecast-2020-2025-the-covid-19-data-bump-and-the-future-of-data-growth-2020-10-01
Q: How do you see telehealth evolving for more specialty specific encounters for both the provider and the patient, i.e. what will be the impact of remote monitoring innovations.
Specifically, we heard from PCPs, cardiologists, and OBGYNs that remote monitoring devices will more greatly improve their virtual interactions with patients because they can track more information from their patients. This can specifically play a role in patients with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, pregnancy, and other chronic management.
Physicians believe quality of telehealth visits will only improve as they have access to apps and devices that can provide greater access to up-to-date information and vital measures.
Additionally, according to Patient Engagement HIT, a healthcare media source, remote patient monitoring is now being reimbursed by Medicare, Medicare Advantage and several Commercials and roughly 33% of hospitals will establish partnerships with RPM vendors by 2021.
Q: Certified Nurse Coaches are now available to coach clients in health promotion. Do you have numbers on Nurses or alternative healthcare providers?
We did not get any data on Certified Nurse Coaches and their role in telehealth, but research by Marketdata estimates that the total U.S. Health Coaching market in 2017 was worth $6.14 billion, which was up 15% from 2014. The total market is forecasted to grow at a 5.4% average annual pace, to $7.85 billion by 2022.
The full report link is below.
https://yourcoach.health/healthcoachingreport/health-coaching-report-yourcoach.pdf
This is a topic we could look more into.
Q: Have you seen practices changing their clinical protocols to eliminate tests and exams that they realized are actually unnecessary – in order to accommodate TM?
I don’t believe we heard this. In fact, that has been the largest noted drawback of telehealth and physicians feel limited by their inability to conduct thorough examinations and testing.
Q: How do you see medical licensing reform changing telehealth adoption.
Telehealth opens the opportunity for physicians to practice across state lines, and the emergency state of the pandemic did result in looser cross-state implications. However, it is still unclear whether this will result in permanent widespread reform. Physicians do expect that medical license regulations may change for specific situations, like a rare disease patient could be seen and treated virtually by highly specialized MDs in Academic centers. However, it is not clear how medical licensing will evolve after COVID-19.
Q: Are patients willing to pay out-of-pocket for telemedicine? Would such a model be sustainable now or post-COVID?
Based on our research, physicians believe that patients expect to have the same out-of-pocket costs as regular visits and expect to have insurance coverage. If the proper insurance coverage continues beyond COVID-19, physicians anticipate that patients will have no problem continuing to pay the standard out-of-pocket cost for telehealth visits as well.
They do believe that some patients may perceive that telehealth visits may be more cost-effective than in-person visits, so they likely would not be willing to pay completely out-of-pocket for virtual visits.
About Our Speaker
Doreen Amatelli-Clark has over 25 years of market research experience on both the corporate and agency sides of the business. She has worked with major corporations such as AT&T and Merck & Co. where she led market research initiatives with their global marketing teams as well as consulting firms in marketing research, marketing, and finance. She started her own market research consulting firm in 2004 and has since worked with a multitude of Fortune 100 Healthcare companies. Completing over 1,000+ interviews and 400+ projects, Doreen is an expert researcher, moderator and marketing consultant.
