...urgent care visits by 19%. Lab visits were also reduced in cost. Patients who saw MDLIVE providers during urgent care visits were able to avoid unnecessary tests, saving an average of $118 for each episode of care. Unfortunately, some of the results offered up by Cigna are countered by other sources–and surprisingly they didn’t cross-check: Evernorth, their health services business, estimates that telehealth visits are currently 25% of all visits. That is far above the claims information that FAIR Health tracks, where telehealth is below 4%. Back in April 2020, it was 13%. Even Epic’s tracking indicated that the peak... Continue Reading
Search Results for "FAIR Health"
What’s next for telehealth in the (almost) aftermath–and rating the US states on policies
...health insurance payers, took a few months to work through into 2021. Telehealth usage in 2021 receded steadily to single digits, and at last report to just above 4% of claims as of October 2021 (FAIR Health US claims data). What remains is the continued dominance of mental health–62% for mental health codes. It’s turned out that Babylon Health‘s SPAC was the last of the major action for 2021, getting in under the wire in October. It’s obvious that investors will be more realistic in assessing telehealth companies, looking at the areas that sustained telehealth usage, such as behavioral health.... Continue Reading
US telehealth usage increases slightly in August, reversing months of decline
...nationally in August 2021 at 2%, the first time it had done so since January 2021. The vast number of claims–58.8%–were for mental health conditions, a slight change from July’s 60.7%, and decreased across every region. Also increased: acute respiratory diseases and infections, rising from 3.5% to 4.2%. The largest increase in telehealth claims occurred in the Southern states, rising from 3.1% percent of medical claim lines in July to 3.5% in August. FAIR Health’s monthly tracker includes claims from the private (commercial) insurance population, including Medicare Advantage, and excluding Medicare fee-for-service and Medicaid. FAIR Health release, Becker’s Hospital Review... Continue Reading
News & deal roundup: Oak Street adds telespecialty RubiconMD, ATA plumps for wider telehealth access, yet claims fall to 4%, West Suffolk NHS adds Zivver mail/file security, Northwell’s $100M for AI–and miss industry shows yet?
...can understand ATA’s frustration and the sincerity of its aims, it distorts the emergency meaning of a PHE that is just about nonexistent except for mandates. And telehealth claims, even with current access, have sunk down to a tick above 4%, 60% of which are mental health codes (FAIR Health July national data). Too many providers, too little demand? The West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (WSFT) has selected Zivver UK to secure its mail and file transfer systems, as it migrates from NHS Mail to Microsoft 365. It includes encrypted email to patients as a core requirement meeting NHS digital... Continue Reading
What’s next for telehealth? Is it time for a correction?
The boom may be over, between shrinking visit volume and a pileup of providers. Is a correction in the cards? The flood of funding that started in 2020 and has not abated was kicked off by the pandemic and a massive shift to telehealth visits in March/April 2020 from a barely-above-plant-life number in January/February. Post-pandemic, the shift corrected. The peak of 69% of visits tracked by Epic in April had tailed off to 21% as early as May 2020 [TTA 2 Sept 20]. National commercial claims data via FAIR Health was lower. They tracked its peak also in April 2020... Continue Reading
News roundup: AliveCor’s latest FDA clearance plus antitrust vs. Apple, VRI on the market, Walgreens’ ‘tech-enabled future’ indefinite plus VillageMD status, monthly telehealth usage drops 12.5%
...for 600 primary care practices in more than 30 markets over next four years. Business Wire National telehealth usage dips to 4.9% of US claims in April, a 12.5% drop from March. Analyzing regional and national insurance claims data, non-profit health analytics company FAIR Health in its monthly report tracks telehealth receding as patients return to in-person care. Telehealth is now dominated by mental health procedure codes, accounting for 58.65% of diagnoses, with all other conditions at 3% or lower. Regionally, the Northeast is even higher at 64.2% and the Midwest above 69%. Monthly National report, Monthly Regional Tracker page... Continue Reading
Weekend reading: the strange reasons why Amwell doesn’t consider Amazon a competitor; ground rules for the uneasy marriage of healthcare and technology
...S pegs the current run rate of telehealth visits at 15-20 percent. The best research from Commonwealth Fund (October) and FAIR Health (August) tracked telehealth at 6 percent of in-office visits. Epic Health Research Network measured 21 percent at end of August. [TTA summary here] Then there’s the tap dance around Amazon Care. His view is that telehealth companies all need a connective platform but that each competitor brings ‘modular components’ of what they do best. What Amazon excels at is the consumer experience; in his view, that is their contribution to this ‘coalition’ because healthcare doesn’t do that well.... Continue Reading
Lasting effects of the pandemic lockdown on health and wealth
A PR hook for healthcare-related companies is a survey that tells us More Bad News about the effects of the pandemic and the US lockdown. Some of it is marketing content scrum, but the quantification of lasting effects has value. Early surveys came from non-profits working with (largely) non-vendors, such as the Epic Health Research Network and Commonwealth Fund/Harvard/Phreesia studies. Then later tracking studies such as those published in PLOS One, by FAIR Health and the Harvard study published in Health Affairs. Focused studies such as those by GoodRx, the prescription discounter, with a surprisingly deep survey concentrating on the... Continue Reading
The shape of telemedicine during the first half-year of the pandemic: significant but wildly uneven usage
...21 percent. Regionally, the South had the least takeup of telehealth even in the critical period. FAIR Health, using insurer claims data, tracked with Commonwealth/Phreesia from 13 percent in April to 6 percent by August. The latest study has been just published in Health Affairs (abstract free, paid access full study). Using data from 16.7 million commercially insured and Medicare Advantage enrollees from January to June 2020, the steep rise from a negligible base was the same but the percentages were between the Commonwealth and Epic studies. 30.1 percent of all visits were provided via telemedicine (including telephonic) and the... Continue Reading
Telehealth claims rose 3,060 percent to October, settling in to over 5 percent of all claims–led by mental health (US)
Utilization statistics confirm telehealth’s staggering rise and stabilization. US private insurance telehealth claims data, collected by non-profit FAIR Health in the year October 2019 to October 2020, rose from 0.18 percent of medical claim lines in October 2019 to 5.61 percent in October 2020, a 3,060 percent increase. While the percentages may be low, this tracks with the rise and fall of telehealth visits from February tracked by the last Commonwealth Fund/Phreesia/Harvard University study in October to about 6 percent of medical visits [TTA 29 Oct 20] as well as Epic’s tracking into September [TTA 2 Sept]. According to FAIR’s... Continue Reading
Most Recent Comments