In the wake of yesterday’s announcement that Amazon is breaking into the employer sponsored plan telehealth market, there was plenty of news today about telehealth.
STAT News reports that
“The market for virtual care is still massively underpenetrated,” wrote Cowen analysts Charles Rhyee, Calvin Sternick, James Auh, and Gwen Shi in a research note Wednesday. While Teladoc expects to provide 10 million visits in the U.S. in 2021, each year the country sees roughly 850 million outpatient visits, plus 300 million additional visits specific to mental health, according to the Cowen analysts. “This is not a zero sum game by any stretch,” they added.
Med City News effectively seconds this point of view as follows:
Amazon will need to build out relationships with health plans and health systems, so it can have a referral network for patients who need to see a specialist. Teladoc, for example, says it has partnerships with more than 50 health plans and 600 health systems, perhaps implying that it’s not going to be that easy.
“New entrants to virtual care will continue to confront many of the challenges Teladoc Health has overcome over the past decade as we have built worldwide capabilities to deliver, enable and empower whole-person virtual care,” a Teladoc spokesperson wrote in an email.
While that may well be true, what Teladoc and Amwell encountered and overcame was low utilization — something that Amazon won’t have to contend with given that Covid-19 has ramped up utilization and adoption sky-high.
It will be interesting to see the jockeying for market share, but no matter which company wins, telehealth has already come out on top.
In that regard, Healthcare Dive reports that “Virtual behavioral health visits surged in the first half of 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated mental health needs, according to a new analysis by Milliman and Well Being Trust.”
Healthcare IT News cautions us that “Telehealth experienced sudden and massive growth starting a year ago, but it didn’t happen everywhere. A new report from the RAND Corporation suggests that the biggest upticks in virtual care availability occurred in more affluent and metropolitan communities, and that telemedicine services were mostly enjoyed by patients with private insurance.”
Healthcare Dive offers an interview with Health Affairs editor in chief Alan Weil that features a discussion of telehealth.
In healthcare equity news
- Health Payer Intelligence reports that “Blue Shield of California has enhanced its provider network to expand COVID-19 vaccine access in underserved communities.”
- Fierce Healthcare reports that
The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) is teaming with Feeding America for COVID-19 vaccine outreach in vulnerable communities.
Clinical information and educational materials highlighting the safety and efficacy of the vaccines will be made available at Feeding America’s 200 food banks, which reach 40 million people. BCBSA will provide physical handouts as well as social media posts with information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its own clinicians.
The materials will be available in both English and Spanish, BCBSA said, and aim to “dispel common myths” that may prevent people from getting vaccinated.
In other healthcare industry news
- Healthcare Dive reports that the Senate confirmed the President’s nomination of Xavier Becerra to be Health and Human Services Secretary by a 50-49 vote. “Becerra has the support of payer and provider groups including the American Hospital Association and American Medical Association.”
- Also coming out of Congress,
Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Representatives Scott Peters (D-Calif.) and John Curtis (R-Utah) today introduced the Methamphetamine Response Act, a bill declaring methamphetamine an emerging drug threat which would require the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) to develop, implement and make public a national plan to prevent methamphetamine addiction and overdoses from becoming a crisis.
“In a single year we’ve seen psychostimulant-related overdose deaths, which include meth, spike by 42 percent,” said Feinstein. “The meth available on our streets is pure, potent and cheap and law enforcement is seizing more of the drug than ever. Two of the largest seizures on record occurred in California last year and in just a five month period, U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized more than 75,000 pounds of methamphetamine. Clearly we are in the midst of a meth crisis and we must implement a national, comprehensive plan to address this threat before it claims even more American lives.”
No bueno.
In further celebration of Patient Safety Awareness Week and because the FEHBlog believes that communication plays an important role in patient safety here’s an AHRQ article on using better communication to improve drug safety / avoid medication errors.