Companies are open to make telehealth services available to their employees. According to National Business Group on Health study involving 136 employers that represent approximately 7.5 million employees, 48% of employers will take this route in states where that’s legal.
Within this group, 33% of employers plan to offer these services without incentives or penalties, while 15% will do so with incentives and penalties.
Moreover, employers are also considering launching additional health tools, with 84% of them saying they plan to offer disease management tools next year, though it’s unclear what kind of tools we’re talking about here. Another 71% said they want to offer price transparency and decision support tools.
Last month, Towers Watson released its survey on telemedicine, predicting it would rise 68% by 2015. The survey at companies with 1,000+ employees found that 22% currently offer telemedicine consultations as a cost-saving alternative to emergency room or primary care visits.
The same survey uncovered that an additional 37% plan to offer telemedicine services by 2015; and by 2016 or 2017, another 34% of employers will considering the same.
[Via: MobiHealthNews]