 | | New Chart: Digital Health |
| US employer medical spending will climb 6% next year — here’s how telehealth could help deflate costs… Medical costs for US employers are expected to grow 6% in 2020, marking a four-year high following a plateau in growth that's persisted since 2017, according to a new PwC report. Specifically, we'll likely see an upsurge in employer spending on drugs and on care for the swelling volume of adults living with chronic illnesses: 62% of adults covered by an employer health plan have a chronic or complex chronic condition, and these individuals rack up as at least 3.5 times more in costs than healthy employees.
Virtual care has shown promise for employers in mitigating overall healthcare spending. By steering employees toward telehealth, employers saved $216 per visit via First Stop Health, for example. And employers should be able to herd a significant portion of employees over to virtual care, considering almost half of consumers said they'd be willing to ditch traditional in-office visits for telehealth.
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| But consumer interest in virtual care varies depending on the use case, so employers can maximize cost-savings by deploying the telehealth services their employees are more likely to readily adopt:
- Giving employees access to telehealth for ongoing physical conditions could be the most cost-effective choice. Of the patients who'd be willing to pivot from traditional care to telehealth, 62% said they'd make the switch for the continuous care for a physical condition. Telemedicine providers are already developing programs for the care of chronic issues: American Well is exploring how telemedicine can be implemented for diabetes treatment, for instance. And not only are a significant portion of consumers bullish on telehealth for ongoing care, employers will likely have to make way for an influx of employees who could make use of it. The number of people with chronic conditions who are using employers' insurance has been trending upward: For example, US adults with diabetes covered by employer insurance rose 28% from 2008 to 2015, and that number may continue to tick up as more people develop the disease.
- Meanwhile, adopting telehealth for persistent mental health conditions might not pay off. Only 27% of consumers said they would forgo traditional care for virtual mental or behavioral care. So, even though we've seen...
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