Video is the standard for telemedicine, right?
Not so fast, said speakers on Tuesday at the third-annual National Healthcare Innovation Summit in Chicago, an event now under the auspices of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society.
Dr. Karen Remley, chief medical director of Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of Virginia, said that the multistate insurance company now covers LiveHealth Online video-based telehealth service for 12 million of its members across the country. But few have actually taken advantage of the benefit.
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“There is not a lot of excitement around video,” said conference co-chair Dr. Molly Joel Coye, social entrepreneur in residence at the Network for Excellence in Health Innovation. For the most part, telehealth users prefer phone calls or text messages. “Consumers and their employers are voting with their fingers and their feet,” Coye added.
Consider the application, suggested Jonathan Pearce, CEO of consumer-facing telehealth startup Zipnosis, which focuses on asynchronous patient-physician encounters. “In some cases, video works extremely well,” Pearce said. “Probably not for sinus infections,” however.
