About a quarter of healthcare providers said their virtual care programs are financially sustainable and are improving efficiency, patient volumes and loyalty by filling gaps in medical specialties or helping chronically ill patients, according to a poll conducted by KPMG.
“Healthcare providers need to think of virtual care as a means to improve patient access and provider efficiency, especially as value-based contracts and other reimbursement incentives gain a greater share of revenue, while meeting patient care needs by filling gaps for key medical specialties,” Dr. Richard Bakalar, managing director at KPMG and a member of the firm’s Global Healthcare Center of Excellence, said in a statement. “Telehealth is rapidly evolving beyond urgent care and is increasingly used for follow up visits and helping chronically ill patients connect with their doctor online. Health plans and government payers are seeing the value from the technology and enhancing reimbursement for virtual care.”
On the other end of the spectrum, approximately 35 percent of respondents said they have not yet started a program incorporating virtual care, and the remaining 40 percent are in early stages.
KPMG’s poll found that the biggest drivers for expediting adoption of virtual care were: increase patient volumes and loyalty (29%), care coordination of high risk patients (17%), reduce costs for access to medical specialists (17%), meaningful use and payer incentives for adoption (13%), and patient requests/consumer demand (13%).
Implementing a virtual care program is not without challenges, though. Most frequently, healthcare providers cite the following reasons for not implementing such program: too many other technological priorities (19%), maintaining a sustainable business model (18%), organizational readiness to implement new services/technology (18%), and regulatory compliance and risk concerns (15%).
The poll reflected responses from 120 individuals, who identified themselves as working for healthcare providers, during a webcast on April 14.