The Sunshine State’s largest health insurer is making a bet on a well-branded telehealth service with a retail experience.
Florida Blue is partnering with Miami Children’s Hospital to offer a new telehealth option for the Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurer’s 4 million members — a walk-in kiosk at Florida Blue’s retail center.
The service, enabled by telehealth company HealthSpot, is essentially a digital retail clinic for both children and adults. A 8-foot-by-7-foot room with touchscreen, medical devices and videoconference line connects patients with Miami Children’s providers, under the supervision of an onsite medical attendant.
The patients and Miami Children’s providers can talk virtually face-to-face, and use a variety of basic diagnostics to probe ailments: a stethoscope, scale, blood pressure cuff, pulse oximeter, thermometer, otoscope and magnascope.
Florida Blue members can make an appointment or walk into its retail store, near The Falls outdoor shopping center, in southern Maimi-Dade. The telehealth station is envisioned as an option for common, non-emergent issues like fevers and colds, rashes, pink eye, earaches, sore throats and sinus and respiratory infections, said South Florida market president Penny Shaffer.
“Florida Blue believes innovation and collaboration efforts like this are critical to the future of healthcare,” Shaffer said. “We are proud and excited to meet the growing needs of our members, by providing this convenient and affordable option to access care.”
Florida Blue now has 18 retail centers located throughout Florida, sunlight-filled stores offering in-person health plan sales, consultation of health plan benefits, free and low-cost preventive care screenings and health coaching.
They’re part of a wave of retail sites insurers have opened in recent years to boost their retail experience, serve the burgeoning individual market and also try to engage with members who are high-utilizers and have chronic health conditions.
“Drink water, a natural choice to quench your thirst,” says one motivational health placard in Florida Blue’s retail center in southern Miami.
The HealthStation telehealth kiosk is the first one Florida Blue is using. It’s a big bet on both telehealth and retail health — that Florida Blue members will want to come to their health plan’s store and digitally consult a physician, when their other options may be telehealth from their own home or visiting a walk-in clinic.
Florida Blue’s new option is leveraging a well-respected local brand, Miami Children’s Health System, which in 2013 launched south Florida’s first pediatric telehealth program.
It’s MCH Anywhere program is supported by a telehealth command center at the hospital’s main campus, where doctors and support staffers review diagnostic information.
“At Miami Children’s, we always seek opportunities to serve children and families wherever the need arises,” says Narendra Kini, MD, president and CEO. “Through our MCH Anywhere telehealth program we are reaching out to communities in the southern part of Miami-Dade County to offer convenient access to board-certified clinicians capable of serving adults and children.”
Date: November 25, 2014