Analysts at Forrester Research say that the adoption of telemedicine has shifted to hyper drive over the past month since virtual healthcare interactions have caught pace to top 1 billion by year’s end. This represents a massive expansion from telemedicine usage before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Forrester analyst Arielle Trzcinski said that there were three barriers impacting the lack of adoption or slow adoption before the pandemic hit. Cost, availability and relationship majorly impacted telemedicine. If a patient could see/meet the provider they were most likely to use the service.
These barriers collapsed drastically last month after President Donald Trump declared that the nation was in a state of emergency after the COVID-19 outbreak hit America. The administration urged doctors and patients to avoid in-patient visits and use telehealth visits to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
According to Frost and Sullivan consultants, telehealth visits surged 50% in March. Forrester analysts estimate virtual visits related to coronavirus could top 900 million this year, based on the current projections for COVID-19 infections in the U.S.
Health insurers and hospitals encourage patients with milder symptoms to make use of their telehealth platforms during this crisis to ease the strain on emergency rooms and doctors’ offices.
The Trump administration eased cost barriers on telemedicine as it declared Medicare and Medicaid would pay the similar rates for virtual visits as in-person appointments. It also eased regulations to allow the use of their mobile devices for virtual visits.
In New York and New Jersey, which were hit hard by coronavirus, doctor’s offices had to offer virtual appointments only, as their states enacted shelter-in-place orders and requested physicians to restrict nonessential office visits.
At present, accommodating the new flood of patients seeking virtual care remains a challenge for small practitioners and larger telemedicine providers.
Trzcinksi said that there is a high demand and they’re not able to provide the necessary service, thus there are long wait times to get to the provider.