COVID-19 and Its Global Impact on Primary Care Virtual Consultations
Last week saw Teladoc Health release its 1Q20 financial results giving the US telehealth industry a first glimpse of how COVID-19 is impacting the ambulatory virtual care market. Discussion around the crisis and its impact on telehealth has been rife since early March and the data published by Teladoc Health highlights that this was justified.
The company reported that the number of virtual care consults in the quarter had passed the 2 million mark, up approximately 60% from the 1.24M reported for 4Q19 and up nearly 90% on the 1.06M for the same period in 2019. Much of this growth had been seen over the period from the start to the end of March, with average daily consultations doubling over the month. Teladoc’s forward-looking statements suggest it expects rapid growth to continue into the next quarter as the full impact of COVID runs for three months, with volumes then flattening in the second half of the year, maintaining the new highs but with growth rates falling back to those seen historically.
Another leading payer/employer-focused telehealth service providers in the US have also been reporting similar levels of success. For example, MDLive reported in early April it had seen volumes increase by 50% between the start of March 2020 and the week of 6 th April 2020.
Although these service providers do have some provider customers, the bulk of consultations are driven by payer and employer customers, with consultations provided by Teladoc’s and MDLive’s own associated physicians (similar models are also true of AmWell and Doctor On Demand, for example). What this data does not tell us, is the extent to which virtual care has changed the types of consultations provided by traditional practices in the US.
On 17 th March the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that effective 6 th March it was expanding the range of Medicare telehealth services that would be reimbursed on an emergency and temporary basis during the period of the COVID crisis. The change lifted many of the location-based restrictions that had been in place prior to the crisis and it also removed the need for an established relationship to be in place between provider and patient prior to a telehealth visit.
The announcement precipitated a flurry of developments from virtual care platform vendors targeting practices looking to ramp up their telehealth capabilities. It also saw at least one non-US platform vendor, Sweden’s KRY (branded LIVI in English speaking countries) launch its first products targeted at the US market. Based on initial data that Signify Research has obtained from a range of vendors that are supporting practices in terms of technology, the percentage increase was seen by Teladoc in 1Q20 is likely to be dwarfed by the increase seen by practices supporting their own virtual care consultations using technology from ambulatory EHR vendors and specialist virtual care...
