Jul 15, 2021
In Episode 329, Stacey Richter talks with Joe Connolly, founder and CEO of Visana Health, about the promise and open questions surrounding virtual-first health care solutions — and why “virtual first” doesn’t mean “virtual only.”
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN
✅ What it actually means to be “virtual first” — and why it’s not the same as virtual only
✅ How payers and purchasers can help employees discover that a virtual-first program is even available to them
✅ Whether virtual care will replace in-person care, and what empathetic virtual care delivery requires
✅ How virtual-first point solutions affect a patient’s relationship with their PCP, and what “physician abrasion” means
✅ What virtual-first providers need to guard against to avoid perverse incentives
WHY THIS MATTERS
Virtual-first health care companies pulled in $6.7 billion in investment in a single quarter of 2021, chasing the same better-selection, better-convenience, better-price playbook that made Amazon dominant. But much of that promise has yet to be realized, and questions about care fragmentation, PCP relationships, and misaligned incentives remain very much open.
=== LINKS ===
🔗 Show Notes with all mentioned links: Episode Page
🔗 Healthcare Industry Acronyms and Terms
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00:00 Introduction.
05:01 What does it mean to be virtual first?
05:50 “It’s meeting people where they are and where they want care to be delivered. It does not mean virtual only.”
07:01 How do payers and purchasers know that a virtual-first program is available to them?
07:34 “We need to come up with new ways to increase engagement with these services.”
10:59 Will virtual care replace in-person care?
15:01 What needs to happen in order to have an empathetic care delivery?
18:06 How should employers try to wade through the virtual health space?
19:41 What’s the value in administration within virtual care?
20:27 How does virtual care affect the relationship of the patient with their PCP?
22:05 What does physician abrasion mean?
25:31 What do virtual-first providers need to make sure they’re doing?
27:16 “There is the possibility for perverse incentives, and it’s up to the virtual-first space to make sure that we don’t give in to those perverse incentives.”
28:28 Who is Visana and what do they do?