Category: Telehealth

Equum Medical Expands Decentralized Provider Network

Posted on by Jason Barry

Acute care telehealth and tele-ICU provider Equum Medical has been busy. After raising $20m in funding this August, the company has been actively hiring and broadening the reach of its multispecialty clinician teams.

The timing of the moves is not a coincidence. As the pandemic continues to pressure hospital bandwidth and cause burnout among healthcare workers, Equum’s services could be a part of the solution.

  • Equum’s unique approach to care delivery supports health systems with telehealth-enabled physicians working in close proximity to patients. These clinical “pods” allow physicians to build durable relationships with local patients.
  • The company’s goal is to create a critical mass of local physicians and intensivists to provide uninterrupted care for partners, with the nationwide network available as a safeguard during local surges in demand.
  • This allows health systems to fill coverage gaps, reduce the labor load of on-site clinicians, and extend patient care in specialty areas. Equum’s modular services also allow partners to right-size coverage options while keeping their existing tech platforms.

The Takeaway

Unlike in other industries where specialization reigns supreme, health systems have yet to outsource a wide range of functions. With a growing number of “prosumers” taking an active role in their care and demanding more from providers, many hospitals are having difficulty meeting rising expectations.

Equum’s decentralized care framework aims to solve this challenge, not with the standard telehealth playbook, but by bringing its services closer to the people that it serves.

Teladoc Virtual Primary Care Expands Nationwide

Posted on by Jason Barry

Teladoc Health is using its scale to reach the 80% of adults that “do not have a strong relationship with a primary care physician” by making its Primary360 solution available to US commercial health plans, employers, and other benefits sponsors.

Primary360 is a virtual primary care service that Teladoc has been piloting for the past two years. It is already being used by several large companies and will be available to Aetna members early next year.

  • Primary360 allows members to select a primary care provider and develop longitudinal relationships with physician-led care teams. Members receive personalized health plans through Teladoc’s virtual care offerings, and can get help navigating to in-person providers.
  • Data from the pilot shows that two-thirds of members previously lacked traditional primary care and that Primary360 helped members detect undiagnosed chronic diseases. One in four chronic conditions identified for members of the pilot were new diagnoses of common disorders such as diabetes and hypertension.
  • Half of Primary360 members enrolled in the pilot take advantage of at least one other Teladoc product, while nearly 30% use two additional connected services.

The Takeaway

Although Teladoc is positioning Primary360 mainly as a way to make primary care more accessible, it also serves as a way to bring in new business following slowing membership growth as the pandemic wanes. Teladoc is establishing Primary360 as a hub for its full suite of virtual solutions, giving more patients the ability to receive primary care while widening the patient funnel for its other offerings.

GoodRx Launches Online Health Resource

Posted on by Jason Barry

Digital pharmacy tool GoodRx recently launched an expansive online resource called GoodRx Health to provide research-based answers to popular health questions.

GoodRx Health takes a different approach than other consumer health destinations, offering actionable insights through GoodRx Answers and a Health Wizard for navigating difficult decisions.

  • GoodRx’s current services include app-based prescription tracking and a telehealth platform called GoodRx Care, which provides virtual primary care services.
  • GoodRx Help adds new ways for users to explore the company’s library of Video Explainers and editorial content, a large strategy shift that pushes the company beyond its current role as a comparison tool.
  • GoodRx’s new strategy targets every stage of a consumer’s healthcare journey, uniting the company’s platforms by directing diagnosis-seeking consumers from GoodRx Health to its GoodRx Care telehealth service for treatment.

The Takeaway

GoodRx Health is far from a small content play to drive more traffic to a website. GoodRx is doing everything in its power to leverage the 20m monthly users already visiting its site, from hiring a 50 person editorial team helmed by the former executive editor of WIRED, Thomas Goetz, to acquiring health video company HealthiNation for $75m in April.

WebMD and symplr announced a similar partnership in August, which allows WebMD users to go from a health information search to scheduling a telehealth appointment in three clicks. GoodRx’s vertical integration of these services could position it as a leader among companies operating in the overlap between health information and treatment.

Spring Health is the Latest Mental Health Unicorn

Posted on by Jason Barry

Digital behavioral health startup Spring Health recently raised a $190m Series C round ($300m total funding), raising its valuation to over $2b and making CEO April Koh the youngest woman to helm a multibillion-dollar company.

The Spring Health investment is the latest movement in an especially active third quarter for the virtual behavioral therapy sector, which has already seen major announcements from companies like K Health and Headspace.

  • Spring Health offers mental health benefits to employers, which include online therapy, coaching, and a guided-exercise app. Its services are marketed as either supplements to employee assistance programs or total replacements in many cases.
  • The company’s differentiator is that it caters to employers with a wide range of health needs and financial capabilities, as opposed to focusing exclusively on large businesses.
  • The new funds will be used to launch “the first cohesive mental health experience for families,” leveraging a single centralized platform to support both employees and their households. The extra capital will also aid in global expansion, adding to the list of over 200 countries that Spring Health currently operates in.

Industry Impact

Spring Health’s Series C round solidifies its position among the ranks of well-capitalized digital health leaders, a list that also includes competitors such as the rapidly growing Lyra Health ($680m funding at a $4.2 valuation).

While Lyra Health widened its strategy with recent expansion into new specialized care areas, Spring Health is instead focusing on depth over breadth by integrating its family health solutions into a single cohesive platform.

Telehealth Expected to Dominate Patient Care

Posted on by Jason Barry

Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (HPE) latest Future of Healthcare Survey explored the pandemic’s impact on healthcare technology, finding that 89% of IT decision makers (ITDMs) have made investing in new technology a priority for their organization.

HPE surveyed 400 healthcare IT decision-makers and patient-facing clinicians throughout the US and UK, each working at organizations with over 500 employees.

Clinician Findings

  • 76% of clinicians believe telehealth will soon account for a majority of patient care
  • 68% agreed they frequently have technology issues in delivering telehealth
  • 82% believe medical devices will have the largest tech impact in the next 5 years

IT Decision Maker Findings

  • 85% of ITDMs say “IT modernization” is their largest IT investment priority
  • 59% say “innovation” is their largest IT investment priority
  • 72% cited IT security as a main concern when moving data to the cloud

Although HPE naturally recommends its own GreenLake edge-to-cloud platform as the optimal answer to each of these problems, the clinician findings highlight that technology’s evolving role in healthcare is a bigger than a single solution, and one that is only expected to get bigger from here.

Tia Raises $100M for Hybrid Women’s Care

Posted on by Jason Barry

Women’s healthcare company Tia recently closed a $100m Series B funding round that will help to scale its “whole-woman, whole-life” model to over 100k women by 2023.

Just two years after seeing its first patient, Tia now has $132m in total funding for its hybrid care model that operates physical clinics in Los Angeles and New York, as well as virtual care in Phoenix.

  • Tia’s hybrid approach combines primary care, mental health, gynecology, and acupuncture to offer women seamless care coordination throughout their entire lives. Tia claims that its proprietary software and care coordination teams can deliver care for 40% less than traditional primary care practices.
  • Tia partners with health systems to provide an integrated inpatient/outpatient experience, creating better care continuity around key periods such as pregnancies. These partnerships also allow Tia members to access specialty care not offered at its clinics, like obstetrics.

According to Tia, women control more than 80% of the US’ $3.6t annual healthcare spend, yet female patients have been repeatedly misunderstood and underserved. Investors have taken notice, with Tia’s Series B arriving within a few week’s of Maven Clinic becoming the sector’s first unicorn with over $1b funding. 

Industry Impact

Up until recently, women’s healthcare has largely been fragmented by body part or life stage, creating an ineffective model that rarely supports holistic care. 

Tia believes its “anti-fragmentation approach” is the solution, driving better outcomes by replacing transactional, condition-based healthcare with relationship-based care that can cater to women throughout their whole lives.

Second Opinions for Anthem Members

Posted on by Jason Barry

Anthem recently signed on with The Clinic to begin offering its members easy access to virtual second opinions. 

  • The Clinic began in 2019 as a joint venture from Amwell and Cleveland Clinic that provides virtual care and digital health records to payers, providers, and patients. The service combines Amwell’s telehealth services with patient support from Cleveland Clinic’s 3,500 physicians.
  • Second opinions are expected to be a $7b market by 2024 (up from $2.7b in 2019), according to research from both companies. Cleveland Clinic studies have shown that second opinions result in a modified treatment plan in 72% of reassessments, as well as a change in diagnosis for 28% of life-altering cases.

Looking Ahead

Anthem is initially making the second opinion service available to its large employer clients, with the potential to expand to smaller employers going forward.

The Clinic CEO Frank McGillin signalled that more is on the way for the partnership, saying that the second opinion services are “just the start of our work with Anthem.” The Clinic anticipates a continued increase in demand for routine expert second opinions when dealing with life-changing health conditions.

Lyra Expands Into New Mental Health Conditions

Posted on by Jason Barry

Mental health benefits provider Lyra Health recently announced a trio of new solutions designed to address complex conditions such as alcohol use disorder and suicidality.

Lyra is seeking to effectively support the employees often overlooked by traditional health plans, such as those with serious mental illnesses and substance use disorders.

The new offerings will launch in early 2022 and include:

  • Lyra Reset addresses problematic alcohol use through virtual therapy, group sessions, symptom assessments, peer support, and medication. Lyra Reset promotes a durable recovery by providing resources for the entire family.
  • Lyra Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Suicidality combines virtual therapy sessions with therapist-prescribed skill-building lessons to help patients decrease suicidal thoughts.
  • Lyra Concierge provides personalized support for children, adolescents, and adults who need help accessing specialized mental health support or rehabilitation facilities.

The Trend

Many new digital mental health companies are focusing primarily on patients suffering from depression and anxiety, a large market given the pandemic-fueled climb in mental health disorders. 

However, as these companies begin to mature (Lyra has raised $680m and is valued at $4.2b), many will expand into other serious conditions.

This trend has the potential to help patients find specialized care that fits their needs, while also supporting employers looking to maintain a healthy and productive workforce.

K Health Acquires Trusst, Sets Sights on Mental Health

Posted on by Jason Barry

Digital primary care provider K Health announced its acquisition of text-based therapy app Trusst for an undisclosed sum, expanding its services into the rapidly growing online mental health arena.

  • Trusst offers a proprietary mobile platform that has the look and feel of regular text chats, adding a layer of familiarity to sensitive conversations with a therapist. To use the service, patients download the Trusst app and fill out a short questionnaire about their symptoms before being connected to a licensed therapist.
  • K Health provides a public symptom checker that funnels users into an AI-guided assessment of their health concerns, then allows them to connect to a physician via a telehealth call or explore treatment options through its paid service.

Both companies share a similarly lightweight digital-first approach to healthcare, providing services without the cumbersome overhead of many competitors, and expanding access to mental health professionals who would otherwise be prohibitively expensive or difficult to reach. K Health intends to fold Trusst’s services into its existing offerings, which include 24/7 access to primary care providers and prescriptions for as low as $12/month.

The Hottest Space in Digital Health

According to Rock Health’s H1 2021 digital health funding report, the virtual mental health space attracted over $1.5b during the first six months of the year, making it the leading clinical focus for new digital health capital. 

That definitely seemed true last week. The K Health acquisition took place one day before  Headspace and Ginger’s blockbuster merger, and the timing is far from a coincidence.

With so much investor attention on the space and a limited number of mental health service providers, companies are quickly staking claims through M&A activity, and K Health is betting that Trusst’s text-based therapy could be the answer to meeting the growing demand for accessible mental health services.

Does Telehealth Really Lead to Patient Loyalty?

Posted on by Jason Barry

New analysis from Sanjula Jain, chief research officer at Trilliant and faculty member at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, suggests that focusing on the wrong success metrics might be negatively impacting telehealth’s effectiveness as a digital front door.

  • In theory, a digital front door is a consumer-friendly and low-acuity engagement, like telehealth, that provides a health system with an opportunity to earn a greater share of an individual’s downstream services. 
  • In practice, telehealth’s ability to serve as a digital front door is hampered by low switching costs between similar services, with many consumers willing to shift from their current provider to a more affordable new entrant, such as Amazon Care.

Jain analyzed the behavior of insured individuals within and outside one of the country’s largest health systems, referred to as Health System A, finding that downstream capture from telehealth services did not indicate strong consumer loyalty.

  • The Findings – Roughly 13% of individuals within Health System A’s 2.7m consumer total addressable market accessed telehealth at least once in 2020, in line with the national average. Of those telehealth patients, Health System A captured a ~34% aggregate downstream share of care (based on revenue). 
  • The Impact – The low downstream share reflects the ability to capture an additional 65% of follow-up care prompted by the initial “front door” interaction. For comparison, Health System A’s service segment with the highest downstream capture was its Emergency Department (69%), indicating that telehealth might not be as effective of a digital front door as commonly perceived. 

The Takeaway

Telehealth is routinely serving as a digital front door, providing patients with their first exposure to a new health system, but more work is needed to validate its effectiveness. For telehealth to serve as a successful gateway to other services, health systems need better measurements of downstream care capture and consumer loyalty.

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