Optum Virtual Care would close
During an April 18 conference call with Optum Everycare CEO Jennifer Phalen, some employees of the company’s virtual care division were told their last date would be in July, according to a news report this week.
WHY IT MATTERS
This is reported by UnitedHealth Group, the parent company of Optum net loss of more than $1 billion during the first quarter – including the impact of the February 21 Change Healthcare ransomware attack and subsequent payment system outages.
Optum’s service provider employs approximately 90,000 physicians, according to Endpoints newswho spoke to three individuals who participated in the conference call with Phalen and discussed the impending closure.
This month one doctor and IT entrepreneur posted to his Substack other unconfirmed reports suggested Optum would end its telehealth service — and questioned whether physical health care had the capacity to replace Optum’s millions of virtual visits.
Powered in large part by Optum’s technology, UHG facilitated more than 33 million telehealth visits in 2020, up from 1.2 million in 2019. This was a 2,500% year-over-year increase, said Kristi Henderson, former Optum senior vice president for digital transformation and CEO of Optum Virtual Care, who is now CEO of Confluent Health, has said.
She wrote further in a 2021 piece Optum.comshe noted that digital health tools enable more connected experiences, complementing standard approaches to care, and that hybrid systems “increase consumer choice and convenience while increasing engagement and access to care,” she said.
THE BIG TREND
In December, Steven Ullman, director of the University of Miami’s Center for Health Management and Policy, said telehealth use fell to 5.4% of medical claims since use skyrocketed during the pandemic.
Adoption of virtual primary care and hybrid care models is expected to grow this year, according to Jon Salon, president of MDLive, an Evernorth Company, a provider of virtual healthcare services.
“As employers continue to roll out plans to bring employees back to the office at least some of the time, they are looking for ways to provide more support for employees’ physical, mental and emotional health – both in person and in the office, and through digital tools and virtual care,” he said Healthcare IT news in January.
In the meantime, Optum has focused on reconnecting Change Healthcare’s systems and on Monday UHG said in its latest report update that pharmacy services and medical claims have returned to near normal levels. The company also said a significant portion of Americans’ protected data was stolen during the cyberattack.
Even as states and others stepped in to help health care providers crippled by a lack of payments and Medicare reimbursements, the prolonged outage threatened the sustainability of small physician practices across the country. Data collected for the American Medical Association from March 26 to April 3 indicated looming closures of practices of 10 physicians or fewer.
Developing digital capabilities and integrating technology into healthcare remain priorities for Optum, leaders said at a recent UHG Investors Conference.
That means “moving care from a clipboard in the clinic to an app on their phone,” says Heather Cianfroco, CEO of Optum. “We are working to transform the consumer experience in every aspect of healthcare for the people we serve, as well as millions of others in the broader marketplace.”
Amar Desai, CEO of Optum Health, said the company is also working to provide physicians with “best practices and the tools they need to best serve in value-based arrangements.”
ON THE RECORD
“Virtual care has been and will continue to be a core part of our comprehensive, integrated care delivery model, designed to deliver care to people where, when and how they want,” a UnitedHealth spokesperson said by email Friday.
“As a company, we are committed to providing patients with a robust network of providers for virtual emergency, primary and specialty care options. We continually assess the capabilities and services we offer to meet the growing and evolving needs of our businesses and the people we serve,” they continued.
“As always, we will support affected team members with employment resources and seek to place them for open positions within the company where possible.”
Andrea Fox is editor-in-chief of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.