When Qualcomm added telemedicine to its employee benefits package in 2012, it was hoping to cut costs and improve care.
Today, almost two-thirds of Qualcomm’s telemedicine users indicated they had used these services instead of making costly and time-consuming trips to emergency and urgent care facilities. The company has cut claim costs as a result.
Other companies have used virtual doctors to ensure that employees are diagnosed correctly.Take Boeing, for instance, which encourages its employees to seek a second opinion through telemedicine service Best Doctors.
These anecdotes suggest that telemedicine is emerging as a robust healthcare alternative.Insurance companies and hospitals are continuing to develop and offer new digital tools to connect patients with healthcare providers at the click of a button, day or night. Currently, 22% of companies with more than 1,000 employees offer telemedicine consultations as a low-cost alternative to emergency room visits and face-to-face consultations with primary care physicians.
With total costs of online healthcare quite often exceeding the price of the co-pay for an in-person consultation, virtual visits could change the prevailing pricing model of enterprise healthcare and insurance.
Source: CastlightVoice: Can Telemedicine Disrupt The Pricing Model For Employee Healthcare?
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