In a sign that competition in the telemedicine market is heating up, MDLive founder and CEO Randy Parker said it hired a couple of Verizon’s Virtual Visits team in the past month in an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. Verizon stopped offering the Virtual Visits package last year roughly six months after launching it.
Leigh Ann Ruggles, who worked for Verizon for two years as director for strategy and business development and marketing in its Mobile Health Solutions unit, joined MDLive last month as executive vice president of business development and client success, according to her LinkedIn profile. Sheila McCormick, who was mobile health strategy and marketing lead for Verizon Mobile Health Solutions for more than one year, joined MDLive as Chief Marketing Officer in December, according to LinkedIn.
Verizon launched Virtual Visits in June as a way to provide non-emergency consults with physicians from their mobile phones, tablets or personal computers as a cheaper alternative to a visit to the emergency room or urgent care facility.
Nancy Green, managing principal for Healthcare Innovations at Verizon, said Wednesday that Virtual Visits was no longer available. But she denied Verizon had exited the telemedicine business. She said its clients didn’t want telemedicine as a package, but wanted different components of it such as HIPAA-compliant video or security authentication.
Although the company had spent several months developing Virtual Visits, Green noted that the rapid pace of change in the healthcare industry meant clients’ interests and needs had changed.
At the time of the launch, the company envisioned three different markets where Virtual Visits could add value — health plans, self-insured employers and health systems.
MDLive has diversified its platform and Parker expects that to continue as it adds medical specialties. In November, it acquired Breakthrough Behavioral to add telepsychology to its users and also offers teledermatology. This year it expects to move into specialized second opinion consults and has partnered with Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
By the end of 2015, Parker said it expects to have 8 million members.
