HealthTap is rolling out a new program for Medicare Advantage plans that seeks to help members form a connection with a primary care doctor that carries forward.
The program leans on a combination of proactive outreach and access to a patient’s historical medical records to support plans in identifying needs or risks, filling care gaps and coordinating follow-up or other necessary care. It’s built to directly support individuals who may not have a PCP on file.
HealthTap reaches out to those members proactively, the company said, and helps them schedule an initial virtual visit with a provider who stays connected for preventive services, chronic condition management and medication concerns.
“The angle that we’re taking is: wouldn’t it be cool if, in fact, your virtual primary care physician was just like a bricks and mortar primary care physician?” said Rick Cochran, senior vice president of health plans at HealthTap, in an interview with Fierce Healthcare.
In an ideal scenario, a patient who have a consistent primary care physician who they see over the course of multiple years and who they come to trust, he said. HealthTap is looking to build that experience with virtual primary care docs, and reach patients who are disconnected from the health system with critical services.
Cochran said the team at times receives feedback about concern that a program like this could upset in-network practices. However, he said that HealthTap views these services lines as complementary, and the company as offering another way for insurers to reach members who are underserved and in need of help.
“There’s a bunch of people who haven’t been receiving care that we can work with,” he said. “We’re not attempting to disrupt anything. We’re attempting to complement things.”
Through the program, HealthTap can connect with members via text messaging, email, direct mail or phone, at the plan’s discretion. The member can then schedule the appointment for themselves, and choose a board-certified primary care physician based in their state.
Between video visits, the member can also connect with their physician through secure messaging, HealthTap said.
In aiming to make the experience feel as much like traditional, brick-and-mortar clinics as possible, Cochran said that members are allowed to switch their physicians and find the one that best matches their individual health needs.
And to better support the physicians, HealthTap pulls from health information networks to pull key medical records, including relevant data from a before an individual enrolled in their current plan. That set-up also means that the patient can carry their relationship with a HealthTap doc forward should they switch plans, Cochran said.
Cochran said that COVID-19 really kicked down the door to virtual care for seniors, and there’s significant opportunity in MA for a program like HealthTap’s, as these patients often have multiple comorbidities and may face barriers to seeing a doctor in person, such as the lack of transportation.
The company did an initial deployment with one MA plan, and found that 35% of the initial outreach cohort scheduled an appointment and 19% completed their first visit within six weeks. Satisfaction scores for both patients and physicians are high, Cochran said.
The approach gives doctors more time to spend working “to make people better, not crank through visits,” he said.
“Our physician satisfaction score is very high because our physicians have the time to spend with the patient to ensure that the patient’s needs are meet,” he said.