Thinking Citizen Blog — Telemedicine. Virtual Doctors are Here to Stay.

Thinking Citizen Blog: Thursday is Health, Health Care and Global Health Policy Day

Today’s Topic: Telemedicine — “10 years change in one week,” “virtual doctors are here to stay”. I’ve always felt that the potential for telemedicine was huge. Some of that potential is now being realized. Will this be temporary? Is telemedicine here to stay? Experts — please chime in. Correct, telaborate, elucidate.

IMAGINE HOW MUCH EASIER ROUTINE MEDICAL PRACTICE COULD BE (Peter Steinberg, urologist)

1. “Imagine pulling up to the medical equivalent of a fast-food window next winter when your child needs a throat culture during cold-and-flu season. This would be much more convenient than schlepping to the pediatrician’s office, waiting to be seen — and passing around germs in the process. Not every medical test is amenable to this method, but there is an opportunity to transform elements of routine care.”

2. “The main barrier to telemedicine has been how doctors are paid and complying with cumbersome reimbursement requirements. Insurers and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have temporarily relaxed restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic.”

3. “But there’s no reason to return to the way things were once this pandemic passes. Necessity is the mother of invention, the adage goes, and hopefully, these changes to medical practice are here to stay.”

THE DAMS OF INERTIA, REGULATORY RESTRICTIONS, AND WORK OVERLOAD ARE GIVING WAY

1. “In Europe, virtual medicine has been held back by strict privacy regulations and patients reluctant to give up in-person doctor’s visits.”

2. “British primary care doctors, too, have been barraged by growing workloads of late, with patients living longer and more problems being rerouted from hospitals, leaving them little time to train on virtual tools.”

3.”But technology companies are racing to capitalize on a regulatory pullback by governments as they battle the virus. Neighborhood doctors, many of them once skeptics, are rushing into the new age, too, singing the praises of virtual visits that they say save them time and offer a useful complement to physical exams.”

NB: “In the past, telemedicine had often involved companies beaming in doctors from hundreds of miles away for a quick prescription or piece of advice. But doctors are now using the same tools to prove to their usual patients that the same level of convenience is available at their local clinics.” (Mueller, NYT, London)

HISTORY — from NASA and Mass General Hospital in the 1960s to Mercy Virtual (2015)

1. “In 1967 one of the first telemedicine clinics was founded by Kenneth Bird at Massachusetts General Hospital. The clinic addressed the fundamental problem of delivering occupational and emergency health services to employees and travellers at Boston’s Logan International Airport, located three congested miles from the hospital. Over 1,000 patients are documented as having received remote treatment from doctors at MGH using the clinic’s two-way audiovisual microwave circuit.” (Wikipedia)

2. “The timing of Bird’s clinic more or less coincided with NASA’s foray into telemedicine through the use of physiologic monitors for astronauts.”

3. In 2015, Mercy Health System opened in Mercy Virtual, in Chesterfield, Missouri, as the world’s first medical facility dedicated solely to telemedicine.

TELADOC STOCK (TDOC) — HAS DOUBLED YEAR TO DATE — as daily virtual visits skyrocket

1. Virtual medical visits have doubled since the first week of March!!!

2. The company is rapidly expanding physician capacity.

3. Revenues for the first quarter are expected to be up 40% yoy. But second quarter comparisons should be far more dramatic.

NB: Other companies that are coronavirus beneficiaries include Zoom (ZM) and Slack (WORK). Whether or not all the good news is priced in is another question. The competitive landscape is fierce. Valuations are high. Current rates of earnings acceleration are unsustainable.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/09/investing/teladoc-coronavirus-virtual-health/index.html

Opinion | Virtual Doctors Are Here to Stay

Telehealth

Doctors and Patients Turn to Telemedicine in the Coronavirus Outbreak

How To Get The Most Out Of Your Virtual Medical Appointment

Teladoc soars on bet that virtual health is here to stay

3 Stocks That Thrive in a Pandemic | The Motley Fool

Teladoc Stock Surges on Huge Growth in Virtual Doctor Visits

YOUR TURN

Please share the most interesting thing you learned in the last week related to health, health care or health care policy — the ethics, economics, politics, history….

Or the coolest, most important thing you learned in your life related to health are or health care policy that the rest of us may have missed. Or just some random health-related fact that blew you away. This is your chance to make some one’s day.

Or to cement in your mind something really important you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than you otherwise would about something that matters.