CASE STUDY
Virtual Care Revolution: How Strategic Insights Powered a New Market Offering
A regional health insurer wanted to build a virtual care offering that would effectively meet the needs of its diverse stakeholder cohorts. Traditionally, virtual care had been a secondary option reserved for after-hours clinical visits and medication refills. However, the COVID-19 pandemic jumpstarted efforts to enhance and develop virtual care, with the demand for it as a primary healthcare delivery vehicle continuing to grow in the years since.
Because of this, the health insurer saw a potential opportunity to enhance their virtual care offerings, but first needed to understand the current landscape to inform their approach. They needed to know how health systems view virtual care as part of their overall strategy, including the perspectives of cohorts like health system administrators, employer groups and consultants, primary care physicians (PCPs), and specialists.
Key topics of interest included assessing the value and implementation of virtual care (perceptions of a virtual PCP option in particular) from the perspectives of different cohorts and how health system administrators in particular perceive virtual care impacting the quality of care and patient experience within their systems.
health insurance
The Solution
To address the health insurer’s needs, we developed a comprehensive web-based framework designed to gather detailed feedback from multiple cohorts. Recognizing the complexity and depth of insights required from health system administrators specifically, we recommended conducting in-depth interviews as part of our approach.
Our team began by engaging with the insurer’s insights team and internal stakeholders to ensure the study design was robust and inclusive. Then, we focused on evaluating the views of the insurer cohorts regarding the value of virtual care, with the following objectives:
- Understanding how virtual care can reduce administrative demands
- Assessing how payment parity is viewed as being necessary to make virtual care work
- Gauging the perceived impact of virtual care on organizations and employees from the consultant and employer perspective
- Identifying the ways a health insurance carrier can improve virtual care benefits and the features found to be most important in a care delivery platform
Throughout the process, we emphasized the importance of considering the perspectives of all cohorts impacted by virtual care to ensure results were comprehensive and truly representative of all necessary cohorts. This approach was vital to avoid potential dissatisfaction from select audiences who do not find value in their virtual care offering.
The Wins
We delivered the insurer three detailed reports for each of the three key cohorts: Health System Administrators, Employer Groups and Consultants, and PCPs and Specialists. These reports provided the insurer with a holistic view of the current virtual care landscape and relevant insights to inform their strategy.
The research revealed significant differences in perceptions among health system administrators, providers, consultants, and employers regarding various aspects of virtual care. These differences included views on price parity and reimbursement, key features of a virtual care platform, and ways to enhance virtual care benefits. Based on these findings, we recommended that the insurer engage in stakeholder read-out sessions to present the varied needs and perceptions. These sessions provided detailed insights to help the insurer develop a virtual care offering aimed at maximizing patient access while maintaining or improving reimbursement levels.
The health insurer has since used these insights as a foundation for strategy development sessions across their organization. Areas including Product & Client Solutions, Healthcare Innovation Operations, Marketing & Communications, and Business Development are leveraging the research findings to discover, deliberate, and establish future virtual care options as part of their health plan offerings.
The greater impact of this research on the organization is expected to be substantial. By readily responding to demand and expanding their plan offerings to better align with the needs of employers, health systems, and consultants, the insurer is now well-positioned to drive market growth and strengthen their overall presence in the healthcare sector.
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