Virtual Care: What Employers Can Expect From Providers

The demand for telehealth coverage and virtual care options skyrocketed during the pandemic. This caused a fundamental shift in people’s attitudes toward virtual care. Now that patients and providers have experienced the benefits of telehealth (e.g., reduced travel times, decreased exposure to illnesses, and instant access to expert care), they won’t be eager to return to the old way of doing things.

That said, telehealth will remain in demand long after the pandemic stops being a public health emergency — especially for patients who crave simplified, immediate, and high-quality care. Given its popularity and demand, employers will have to adapt to workers’ evolving expectations.

Luckily, they have an opportunity to make virtual care accessible to all of their employees — and enjoy a few benefits for themselves in the process.

Virtual Care and Your Bottom Line

In recent years, employers and workers have struggled with high health insurance premiums and deductibles — this is particularly true for smaller companies and employees with lower incomes. As a result, many businesses opted to increase deductibles rather than premiums. According to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey, many workers face annual deductibles of $2,000 or more.

Employees, understandably, aren’t happy with this situation. Fortunately, employers can improve their benefits and bolster employee satisfaction by supplementing high-deductible health plans (HDHP) with virtual care coverage. This could cover virtual urgent care, which lets employees address common urgent health issues more conveniently while reducing out-of-pocket costs; or it could include something more comprehensive like virtual primary care, which gives members access to annual visits, lab work, and ongoing treatment plans.

These convenient and cost-saving benefits also encourage more employees to keep up with their preventive care and proactively manage chronic conditions, reducing the number of insurance office visits and major health issues they have to deal with in the long term. This also reduces costs for companies by preventing insurance price increases. And smaller companies that can’t fully cover employees can still provide affordable healthcare benefits that work for everyone.

Understanding and Choosing the Right Virtual Care Options

When weighing which virtual care options to include in your coverage, consider these elements:

1. Include Virtual Urgent Care.

Virtual urgent care provides access to a doctor within minutes — 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Urgent care accessibility lets employees address common illnesses and injuries, fill prescriptions, and get referrals to specialists.

2. Offer Behavioral Health solutions.

Virtual care providers should cover patients’ physical and mental health. Virtual behavioral health solutions, such as behavioral therapy, offer a network of licensed and professional therapists to address employees’ emotional and behavioral health concerns from the comfort of their homes. It’s an equally important component of your virtual care coverage.

3. Provide Virtual Primary Care.

Evaluate whether providers offer comprehensive healthcare solutions like virtual primary care. It provides the same advantages as in-person primary care but within a convenient online platform that still allows for ongoing patient-provider relationships. Patients can schedule follow-up visits with the same providers and effectively manage chronic conditions or address new health concerns.

4. Look for flexibility and ease of use.

Make sure your virtual care provider enables your employees to add or remove family members from their plans. Look for plans that offer prescription drug discounts in addition to health and wellness resources. Finally, the provider should have a user-friendly navigation platform with strong customer service to provide users with the personal attention they want and need.

Selecting the right virtual care coverage for your employees can feel overwhelming. Carefully weigh your options, evaluate the benefits of each plan carefully, and make decisions based on what will keep your employees healthy and happy well into the future.

At Health Karma, we believe good healthcare starts with understanding it. Learn more about how virtual care could strengthen your health coverage offerings.