The acceleration of telehealth adoption among consumers and providers has pushed virtual care beyond urgent care services and laid a framework for up to $250 billion of U.S. healthcare spending to be virtualized, according to a recent McKinsey report.
The COVID-19 pandemic has fueled the shift to virtual care. About $250 billion, or 20 percent of all Medicare, Medicaid and commercial operating expenses, office and home health spend could potentially be virtualized.
Four report insights:
1. Twenty percent of emergency department visits could potentially be avoided by offering virtual urgent care services.
2. Twenty-four percent of healthcare office visits and outpatient encounters could be delivered virtually, and an additional 9 percent could be delivered "near-virtually" at a retail clinic or testing site.
3. Thirty-five percent of home health services could be virtualized.
4. Two percent of all outpatient office visits could be moved to the patients' home setting through tech-enabled medication administration services.
Click here to view the full report.