Amazon Clinic-affiliated telehealth leader: There’s a role for DTC with trad providers
When Amazon Clinic spread to all fifty states, SteadyMD was there – or you might say, in there.
SteadyMD, which offers a B2B telehealth platform and nationwide medical staff, has been an important part of Amazon Clinic’s journey. The telehealth company was one of the first employees and one of the first participating providers of the service when it launched in November 2022.
Now SteadyMD is part of Amazon Clinic expansion that allows video visits nationwide – including in the 16 states that require synchronous visits – to expand existing message-based, asynchronous telehealth capabilities. Amazon Clinic users nationwide can get help for 30 common health conditions, including urinary tract infections, pink eye and erectile dysfunction.
Available on the Amazon Clinic marketplace, SteadyMD provides services for small primary and emergency care organizations. We interviewed Guy Friedman, CEO and co-founder of SteadyMD, to discuss the Amazon Clinic venture, and what IT leaders at hospitals and healthcare systems need to know about telehealth companies like his as demand for virtual care increases.
Q. What role does SteadyMD play in the Amazon Clinic offering?
A. SteadyMD was the telehealth provider on the Amazon Clinic platform when it launched last November, making both our technology and our national provider group available to their members. Through the Amazon app or Clinic page, their customers can choose SteadyMD’s licensed physicians and nurses to address more than 30 common health conditions.
While there are other provider groups now available to Amazon customers, SteadyMD’s involvement continues to expand collaborate on new terms and features with healthcare leaders within the company.
Q. What types of services did you provide through Amazon Clinic around the November 2022 launch?
A. SteadyMD played a crucial role in the early stages of Amazon Clinic. By leveraging our national reach and consumer-facing experience, we have contributed to the development of elements such as user experience, care protocols, patient intake forms and patient flow management.
As the original participating provider in 32 states at initial launch, we have continued to support Amazon Clinic’s expansion and now offer video visits in all 50 states.
Q. SteadyMD is part of Amazon Clinic’s recently announced expansion to 50 states, including the 16 states that require synchronous visits. What will your providers do now??
A. SteadyMD’s nationwide network ensures that our physicians and clinicians in states that can only conduct synchronous visits will remain committed to delivering exceptional care via video or phone consultations. For states with flexibility on visitation modalities, consumers have the freedom to choose between asynchronous or synchronous visits and choose from our providers that offer one or both methods.
It is important to note that Amazon Clinic subjects all of its service agents to a rigorous evaluation process, including both synchronous and asynchronous providers. Like other providers on the platform, SteadyMD undergoes ongoing reviews of clinical quality and customer experience by Amazon’s clinical leadership team.
We consistently demonstrate our value as a participating healthcare provider group through the performance of our physicians and resulting high customer satisfaction.
Q. What should hospital and healthcare system IT leaders know about telehealth companies like yours as demand for virtual care increases?
A. This question ties in perfectly with the previous questions about the Amazon Clinic, because hospital and healthcare system leaders need to know — as most already do — that direct-to-consumer telehealth services will become increasingly popular, specialized, accessible and affordable for their patients in the future. coming years.
This means their competition extends beyond the brick-and-mortar providers in their communities or regions to include well-funded, highly recognizable national brands. I’m not just talking about primary care, but also about specialized chronic conditions and post-acute care that require remote monitoring and integrated services at home.
More complex virtual care services like these will become more common among non-local providers, especially as commercial health insurers recognize how virtual care reduces costly emergency room visits and hospital stays, which, in addition to electives, are also the health systems’ highest-revenue services. operations.
What physical providers have going for them is their brand in the local geography. These organizations are connected to their communities, and many have built trust with generations of families and businesses over decades.
Through their telehealth services, these healthcare systems should leverage their local brand recognition and base of trust, but perhaps a risky strategic move they can make is to further overburden their existing physicians and IT staff by adding telehealth visits to their already overloaded schedules. This has the potential to negatively impact the quality of care and user experience.
Healthcare systems would be wise to outsource as many elements as possible to reduce their burden and choose providers that are highly experienced and have a track record of delivering the highest quality care.
Implementing this hybrid type of telehealth structure can ensure that the trust and brand recognition they have worked so hard to build remains intact, giving them an advantage over the growing market of direct-to-consumer competitors.
Follow Bill’s HIT coverage on LinkedIn: Bill Siwicki
Email him: bsiwicki@himss.org
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