Hate going to the doctor’s office?
Then you might welcome the latest wave in health care’s telemedicine revolution, which is offering virtual visits for a range of minor ailments.
Lancaster General Health and Capital BlueCross both recently made virtual visit announcements.
“Patients don’t have to call and make an appointment, leave work, sit in an office and see their physician,” Corey Meyer, LG Health director of patient access and virtual health, said in a story printed in the health system’s newsletter. “E-Visits also are simple for physicians. They can handle an E-Visit for a cold within two or three minutes, vs. 15 minutes for an office visit.”
LG Health
LG Health’s program has expanded from covering six conditions for patients in insured by CoreSource or Aetna to covering 12 conditions for any patients who have visited a LG Health physician practice in the past two years.
Some insurers charge co-pays of $15 to $20, according to LG Health, and the self-pay option costs $40.
To use the program, patients log into MyLGHealth, select an E-Visit and answer questions about their current medications, allergies, and the duration and description of symptoms.
The system screens for more serious symptoms and tells patients who have them to schedule an in-person visit.
For patients who qualify for E-Visits, the system sends a request to the patient’s primary-care practice, where a doctor reviews the patient’s symptoms and history within five normal business hours, then prescribes treatment.
Meyer reported that LG Health physicians are doing about 40 to 50 E-Visits a month. The program currently covers sinus and cold symptoms, cough, diarrhea, red eye, urinary problems, heartburn, allergies, back pain, poison ivy, influenza, athlete’s foot and vaginal discharge — with visits for oral contraceptives and tobacco cessation to be added later this year.
Capital BlueCross
The program Capital BlueCross announced will begin Jan. 1, 2016, offering members of most of its plans video visits via the Amwell telehealth service.
“Seeing a doctor will be as easy as signing on from a laptop or opening an app on your phone,” said Brooke Nordai, Capital BlueCross director of product innovation.
Amwell’s model puts patients face-to-face with doctors in less than two minutes at any time for common conditions, the insurer said, and patients can also request an appointment with a specific provider within the service’s national network of “doctors who are board certified, licensed and credentialed.”
Capital BlueCross spokesman Joe Butera said the retail cost of Amwell visits is $49, but for Capital BlueCross members it will be $39. The cost will count toward a member’s deductible and out-of-pocket maximum, he said, and claims will be sent to the insurer automatically.
Another insurer, UnitedHealthcare, previously announced that a similar program would be offered to employer-sponsored and individual plan participants in 2016. Those visits will cost less than $50, according to UnitedHealthcare, and be offered in partnership with Amwell, Doctor on Demand and Optums NowClinic.
A third insurer — Aetna — reported offering Teladoc visits through some of its plans, and a goal of expanding the program to include behavioral health providers.
Evolution of telemedicine
Telemedicine has been expanding gradually in a variety of forms. In addition to virtual visits, those include teleburn and telestroke programs that let patients at smaller hospitals be evaluated by treatment specialists, and in-home monitoring systems that enable better management of chronic conditions.
Pennsylvania Medical Society strongly supports the expansion of telemedicine, according to Dennis L. Olmstead, its chief strategy officer.
But, he said, “There is a need to embrace efforts that will encourage health insurers to pay for telemedicine services.”
The society is working on legislation that would expand telemedicine in the state, Olmstead said, including requirements for a “virtual face-to-face examination, with limited exceptions such as an already established relationship between patient and provider.”
Andy Carter, president and CEO of the Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania, described virtual visits and other types of telemedicine as examples of the steps hospitals are taking “to become more patient-centric and better engage consumers in their health care.”
The result, he said, can be “simpler, less time consuming, and, in some cases, less costly health care interactions for certain conditions and illnesses.”
Date: August 18, 2015