The Truth About Virtual Care vs. In-Person Care

Virtual care has become a preferred healthcare delivery model for many and it’s clear that it’s here to stay. About 88% of Americans would like to continue using virtual care post-COVID-19.¹ Virtual care is also more popular among younger people with 40% of millennials (75% of the workforce by 2025) believing telemedicine is an extremely important part of an employee benefits package.² 

A recent study of 500,000+ patients looked at the quality of performance with virtual care versus in-person care. The findings were simple: Virtual care not only provides a convenient means to accessing care, but even improves users’ healthcare experiences.³ 

Here are a few of the findings that show virtual care provides a better healthcare experience compared to traditional, in-person care:  

1. Patients with virtual care exposure were 2 times more likely to receive a mental health screening. 
2. Of the quality measures studied, virtual care had comparably better performance in almost 70% of the quality measures.  
3. Using virtual care enhances different parts of care and can even enhance primary care. 
4. Virtual care performed better in 11 out of 16 of the quality measures. Of the 2 out of 5 quality measures that office-only patients indicated performed better, “the differences were not statistically significant, indicating no difference in quality performance between groups in these measures.” 
5. For 13 of 16 quality measures, patients using virtual care performed comparably or better than office-only patients, showing that virtual care impacts and can even improve performance. 
6. Unlike patients who solely used in-person care, patients with virtual care experienced significantly better performance for chronic disease management and prevention. 
7. Virtual care can allow for multiple touchpoints throughout a patient’s healthcare journey and allows doctors to engage in better quality measures with more interactions. 
8. Early evidence found a positive association of virtual care with improving the quality of primary care.   

First Stop Health (FSH) Virtual Care Solutions 

FSH Telemedicine, Virtual Primary Care and Virtual Mental Health solutions deliver patient-first care to members where and when they need it. With Telemedicine, members have access to 24/7 urgent care for episodic health concerns. Virtual Primary Care consists of preventive and chronic care to help coordinate and manage the many touchpoints of members’ healthcare journeys. Virtual Mental Health provides counseling to members, and in conjunction with Virtual Primary Care guidance and medication management, can lead to better whole-person health. 
 

1. https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/most-consumers-want-keep-telehealth-after-covid-19-pandemic 
2. https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/millennials-demand-telehealth-move-away-traditional-primary-care-model 
3. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2796668