Healthcare Provider Views on Telemedicine

Healthcare in the United States is plagued with inefficiencies. Despite best efforts, providing consumers the care they need at a reasonable cost has evaded policymakers and industry alike. 

Telemedicine is the most obvious example of a solution that has underachieved its potential. While the COVID-19 pandemic has shown how useful telemedicine can be, its role in healthcare delivery is unclear. In addition, reimbursement policies and the infrastructure needed for implementation remain uncertain.

Telemedicine adoption will happen when the needs of all stakeholders, including patients, payers, and healthcare providers, are fulfilled.

Recent studies show that patients are very satisfied with telemedicine. A Luminous survey conducted in September 2020, revealed that 75% of consumers believe it will have a significant impact on how patients access healthcare in the future (17% believe it will be somewhat significant and only 8% see it as not very significant). A study by Kyruus in June 2020, concluded a similar, high level of patient satisfaction (75%).

In addition, to understand the provider's perspective, Luminous implemented a survey with physicians, nurse practitioners, and physicians’ assistants in October 2020. Our findings are summarized in the graphic below.

Here is a sample of what we heard:

“It is vital at this time.” “We need ease of access for both patients and providers.” “Providers need training on how to do effective virtual interviewing.” “Payer acceptance and integration between telemedicine, EHR, and reimbursement platforms is key.” “Telemedicine can only get you so far.” 

When asked about the challenges they face in adopting telemedicine, 23% of healthcare providers say that preference for in-person and patient access to technology are key barriers. The risk of medical error (22%), privacy/data security (16%), and practice capacity/staffing to implement technology (16%) were also cited as concerns.

To drive adoption, 72% of healthcare providers need technologies that provide some form of remote engagement – remote patient monitoring (27%), remote diagnostics (25%), and remote care management/coaching (20%). They also identify interoperability (16%), and data analytics (12%) as important.

When it comes to treatment, 58% of providers identify care continuity – on-going/chronic care (31%) and medication management (27%) – as the main area where telemedicine can have a significant impact, followed by triage (22%) and prevention (20%).

The findings raise important questions:

·       Which aspects of healthcare delivery can telemedicine best support?

·       Where will telemedicine infrastructure investment come from?

·       What tools and skills do healthcare providers need to effectively deliver telemedicine?

With patient interest high, providers and payers have an opportunity to innovate and deliver telemedicine offerings that serve healthcare needs and drive down costs.

By putting the Spotlight on patients, Luminous can help understand and map the path to adoption of new digital health technologies and the role of telemedicine.