Episode Details

Let's talk about provider organizations and telehealth. It's just too common a refrain amongst provider organizations who say some combination of:

• Our patients and/or clinicians don't like telehealth.
• Telehealth is too expensive for us to do ... unless maybe we should charge facility fees for telehealth visits.
• Telehealth is risky to invest in because as soon as payers start paying less than 65% of in-person visits, we're gonna drop it anyway.

These things are said despite the overwhelming popularity of telehealth in almost any large-scale survey that you'll find. It seems like largely the only entities reporting that patients and clinicians don't like telehealth are provider organizations who haven't adequately invested in telehealth at the systematic/strategic level. Therefore, the only thing their anecdotal evidence about telehealth really seems to show is the negative impact of phoning it in—which is no one wanting to phone in (pun unintentional but, you have to admit, kind of great).

All of this is going on with an interesting backdrop, as reported by Chartis Group (and shared by Olivia Webb in her Substack the other day): Health systems see telehealth as a major competitor—82% of health systems surveyed reported that telehealth companies like Teladoc or Amwell are competitors. This is second only to the percentage of surveyed health systems that named other health systems as competitors.

John Singer wrote on Twitter the other day, "Any leader who thinks their business is immune to the wild dynamism of our time is unlikely to last long."

So apropos. Love it.

I said this on a podcast last December (and you can go back and check the tape if you want to), and I'm even more convinced of it right now: Telehealth is inexorable, and it's already showing its disruptive potential. But let me point out something here. Who is leaning in hard to telehealth? I'm gonna make a broad-stroke statement here—so take it for what it's worth—but let me hypothesize that who is leaning in hard to telehealth and virtual healthcare are telehealth and virtual healthcare companies. Many of them are adding in-person care because billing codes, but their DNA is digital. So, most of the so-called "hybrid" companies out there are digital companies with in-person clinics that they've added—not ye old in-person clinic that added a digital service line.

So, I say all this to say I wanted to talk to a traditional sort of provider organization. I wanted to talk to an in-person provider organization who is conceiving of telehealth not as a threat but as a new opportunity to provide ancillary services. One who is going "hybrid" but from the other direction—traditional in-person to digital instead of digital to in-person.

Further, I wanted to talk to the CFO of one of these places. I thought the CFO would be the one to get the real scoop from because it's all about the business model, baby.

Let me underline the business model point with a quote from a Substack entitled "I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea." And here's the quote: "It had been … a working assumption of mine ... that if you could improve the health of … patients then, you know, [someone] would pay for that."

Yeah. No, they won't. Unless … business model.

My guest in this healthcare