Telehealth is just one of the pillars of an "omni-channel" approach CVS Health is developing toward providing care for people, Creagh Milford, DO, the company's senior vice president of retail health, told a webinar Dec. 14.
As well as telehealth, whether that be virtual or digital, in-person clinical care is one of the structures CVS Health is focusing on to give people such a holistic and "integrated model" approach. Earlier this year, CVS Health agreed to acquire the Signify Health value-based care group for $8 billion, adding more than 10,000 physicians to its roster.
"Tying these all together so that they can consume and get care where and when they want it is critical," Dr. Milford told an Axios Vitals webinar.
As for telehealth services, people were showing they still very much wanted to use them as an important way of taking care of their health, Dr. Milford said, adding that 72 percent of people believed they could get as good or better services virtually, a figure he described as "astounding" when compared with just a few years ago. Similarly, about 75 percent of providers believed they could offer as good a service as in-person through telehealth.
The COVID-19 crisis exacerbated the need for telehealth, but people don't necessarily want to now go back to the traditional in-person model, he said.
"There is no doubt that the pandemic completely accelerated telehealth services," Dr. Milford said.
One of CVS' main priorities is to pursue telehealth reimbursement strategies with Congress, CMS and others, "to ensure we are meeting the needs of our consumers," he said.