Virtual health care visits8/15/2023 More people than ever have access to cell phones but with variable smartphone and data access. Addressing gaps in technology, awareness, and trust may be necessary. Address differences in uptake by income.A few opportunities include the following: There is tremendous potential to improve access to virtual care across all patient cohorts. The factors that appear to matter in accessing virtual care seem to be location, median income, and type of payer. Structural barriers continue to affect patients’ access to all forms of care, including virtual care. its potential to mitigate healthcare differences by improving access and convenience may be currently underutilized. The factors that appear to matter in accessing virtual care seem to be location, median income, and type of payer.Īlthough virtual healthcare is seen as a boon by many patients, 4 Jenny Cordina, Jennifer Fowkes, Rupal Malani, and Laura Medford-Davis, “ Patients love telehealth-physicians are not so sure,” McKinsey, February 22, 2022. Similarly, managed-care organizations could expand awareness of these benefits. This may point to opportunities to encourage greater adoption through benefits changes (for example, waiving copayments) and to incentivize integrated primary and behavioral healthcare models for this population. ![]() While Medicaid is associated with one of the highest overall virtual-care-adoption rates, the adoption of virtual care for behavioral health is six percentage points lower in people with Medicare than with people with commercial payers (51 percent, compared with 57 percent). Additionally, the benefits of virtual care for older populations (eliminating the need for transport, convenience of scheduling, etcetera) could suggest that payers and providers may need a targeted strategy for this cohort. 3 McKinsey Consumer Health Insights Survey, 2015–22. However, consumer surveys have shown that in the past few years, the gap in uptake of virtual care has been closing between those below age 65 and those above. Vogels, “Millennials stand out for their technology use, but older generations also embrace digital life,” Pew Research Center, September 9, 2019. They are also more likely to have differences in their use of technology (PCs and laptops, compared with smartphones) that may temper their uptake of virtual care. Mold, and Michelle Roberts, “When do older patients change primary care physicians?,” Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, December 2004, Volume 17, Number 6. The reasons may be varied: older patients are likelier to have more established relationships with their in-person care providers. Those with other payers are clustered around an 18 percent adoption rate, while those with Medicare have a rate of 12 percent. There is a large gap in virtual-care adoption between people with Medicare and those with other payers. In the following exhibits, we examine which patient segments are currently underserved by virtual care and why, and offer considerations for healthcare stakeholders regarding ways they might extend access. ![]() While many believe virtual care can improve access for the underserved, the current imbalance in usage suggests that US healthcare stakeholders could consider designing virtual-care models that address structural barriers so that virtual care is more widely accessible. In general, patient segments with limited access to in-person care (for example, those in rural counties and those with lower incomes) have relatively fewer virtual visits. we estimate that more than 50 million in-person visits per year could be converted to virtual or telemedicine visits if adoption were extended equally across patient segments. The insights from the analytics solution were used to understand which visits could be delivered virtually. Using national claims data, 3 Claims data from Compile for 2020–22 were analyzed using a McKinsey proprietary virtual analytics solution. ![]() 2 Oleg Bestsennyy, Greg Gilbert, Alex Harris, and Jennifer Rost, “ Telehealth: A quarter-trillion-dollar post-COVID-19 reality?,” McKinsey, July 19, 2021. remains much higher than prepandemic levels (14–17 percent of visits, compared with approximately 1 percent in February 2020), but adoption hasn’t been uniform across clinical conditions, age groups, geographical locations, and types of insurance. We define virtual care as the range of provider–patient interactions that occur outside of in-person visits, including telehealthcare, text-based care, e-triage, and remote monitoring. ![]() Telehealthcare adoption 1 Video- or phone-based telehealthcare is only one type of virtual-care solution. The COVID-19 pandemic has required patients, healthcare providers, and governments to reimagine how care might be delivered at home, and has revealed opportunities to potentially improve outcomes, reduce costs, and improve patient experience.
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