Telehealth policies may not be set in stone just yet, but health care leaders say that post-COVID, the virtual tool is here to stay.

“Things have changed permanently—and for good overall. COVID has been a forcing mechanism in eliminating many of the artificial barriers around telehealth, both from a regulatory and reimbursement standpoint,” says David Lim, MD, PhD, corporate vice president at InnovaCare Health. “Also, telehealth immediately expands access and improves connection between provider and patients — I don’t think we realized before how powerful that is. We will continue to rely on this new tool.”

But with many PCP offices now offering telehealth or virtual care, there’s also a challenge: If you don’t understand how to adopt telehealth or establish efficient and effective workflows, you could lose in this increasingly competitive landscape.

The Opportunity

National healthcare consumer research finds that 43% of Americans have tried telehealth, and 86% say they were satisfied with their experience. Of those who’ve never tried it, 58% would consider it. Why? It’s all about:

  • The convenience of not leaving home to see a healthcare provider
  • Having insurance to cover telehealth/virtual care costs
  • Having someone from the doctor’s office call before an appointment to talk through the telehealth/virtual call process

At the same time, says Lim, “We know the telehealth relationship and interaction is a lot smoother when a patient is well established in his or her clinic and everyone knows one another.”

Younger populations also tend to prefer telehealth, yet they continue to value personal relationships with their provider and office staff. Older patients tend to miss in-person interactions and are eager to return to the office when it’s safe to do so.

Meeting the Challenge

During the early days of COVID, InnovaCare Partners quickly established its telehealth process for its nearly 20 practices — in less than 30 days — including setting up call center protocols to walk patients through how telehealth works. This was during a time when HIPAA rules restricted which telehealth platforms could operate and insurance regulations limited reimbursement for telehealth, based on patient geography.

Now, with reimbursement likely here to stay and waivers allowing use of widely available platforms such as Zoom, Skype and Facetime, patients and providers can interact more freely over any device, including smartphones. Another positive is that very few issues have arisen

with HIPAA compliance, and telehealth may even improve continuity of care, particularly for patients with chronic illness.

Telehealth Is Just the Beginning

The future is coming quickly, and it’s one where technology will make practice management faster, easier and more accurate. “Telehealth is just a part of that toolkit,” says Lim, who foresees texting, instant messaging and more down the pipeline.

Making smart investments at the outset to build the right interface pays off dividends. Next is determining how to maintain that interface and get the most out of it as you grow your practice. “That’s what InnovaCare does,” says Lim. “We harness our various data sources to derive very keen insights on what interventions and standards we need to deploy to hit on a number of discrete goals, including improving clinical outcomes for patients and the provider experience as well. That’s really the secret sauce.”