Specialty Telehealth Business Dynamics

If you’ve followed Healthcare IT Today and our Health IT Interviews podcast, you know it’s pretty rare that I have the same guest on the show and when I do it’s usually a year or a half dozen years apart.  However, when we finished recording the episode “What Makes Specialty Acute Care Telehealth Different?” with John Kalix, CEO at SOC Telemed, we stumbled upon a topic that I felt deserved another episode.  That topic was a look at the various Business Dynamics associated with Specialty Telehealth.

In this episode we talk about all the business dynamics for a hospital or health system that might be looking at whether they should have a specialists in house and when they should consider using a specialty specific telehealth option.  Does the size of the organization matter?  Does the “supply” of a certain specialist influence the decision?  Are there some specialties that are better for this than others?

Plus, we also dive into the details around the costs of a telehealth specialist versus one in house.  We talk about the cost of locum tenens specialists and those costs as compared with a telehealth specialist.  What’s the ROI model to consider?  Finally, we talk about the pros and cons of the experience a specialty doctor will have doing telehealth vs in-person.