Becker's Hospital Review

32 CIO / HEALTH IT What UnitedHealth Group, Humana, Anthem and Cigna execs are saying about telehealth By Laura Dyrda W hen the pandemic began, insur- ance companies acted quickly to ensure members had access to telehealth services. Some waived fees while others changed their policies to cover more services virtually and pay in-office rates for telehealth visits. In some cases, those benefits are set to expire while oth- er changes have become permanent. In 2020 earnings calls, executives from four of the na- tion's largest insurance companies discussed how their telehealth policies changed and hint- ed at what to expect in the future. UnitedHealth Group: Early on in the pan- demic, UnitedHealth Group equipped phy- sicians within its subsidiary, Optum, to de- liver care virtually. e company enabled direct connection between patients and their physicians that UnitedHealth Group CEO David Wichmann believes would extend well beyond the pandemic. "So far this year, OptumCare physicians have facilitated 1 mil- lion digital clinical visits directly with their patients, and we are rapidly developing a proprietary set of distinctive tools and align- ing our clinical practices to further develop and amplify this capability," he said during the company's third-quarter earnings call Oct. 14, as transcribed by Seeking Alpha. "I am sure you can see how advancing mod- ern telehealth fits into our overall strategy to build high-performing systems of care." Humana: Humana pivoted during the pan- demic to allow network providers to use per- sonal devices for telehealth and paid in-office rates for the visits. e company also estab- lished clinical outreach teams to engage with vulnerable members and waived copays for primary care, behavioral health and tele- health services for members. "As we reenter a normal environment, we will get the pay- ment models to ensure that we are encourag- ing an omnichannel approach where it's ap- propriate to use the office when needed [and] telehealth when it's needed," said Humana President and CEO Bruce Broussard during the company's second-quarter earnings call Aug. 5, as transcribed by Seeking Alpha. Mr. Broussard added that telemedicine vis- its were up 15 to 20 times year-over-year. At Humana clinics, telehealth peaked at 80 per- cent to 90 percent of visits at the height of the pandemic and then dropped to 20 percent to 30 percent as time went on. "I think partic- ularly for seniors, there's a real desire to be social and meet with others and meet with their doctor in person," said Mr. Broussard. "We don't think that's going to change, but we do think telehealth is a critical supplement to the general care program that we think will really take hold going forward." Anthem: Anthem had facilitated 475,000 telehealth visits and 82,000 COVID-19 as- sessments as of July 29, and member care visits were up 300 percent over pre-pandem- ic levels, President and CEO Gail Boudreaux said during its second-quarter earnings call July 29, as transcribed by Seeking Alpha. e company's on-demand telehealth solution surpassed 1 million visits in April, with a par- ticular demand for behavioral health services. "Telehealth is clearly here to stay, and it's real- ly helping us find the right setting [for care]," said John Gallina, CFO of Anthem, during the call. "It's really all about getting the right care at the right time in the right place for our members, and how we're utilizing the various virtual engagements in the digital-type capa- bilities that we've been creating." Cigna: Cigna initially partnered with telehealth company MDLive in 2013 for employer-spon- sored health plans and expanded its partnership to grant access to primary care physicians in January, prior to the pandemic. Aer the pan- demic hit, the payer worked with physicians, Medicare Advantage and others to expand telehealth access. During the company's sec- ond-quarter conference call July 30, Cigna Pres- ident and CEO David Cordani said he believes a "meaningful amount of care" will be delivered virtually in the future, which will include in- home care enabled by technology. "We believe that the rate and pace of adoption and accel- eration of reformatting care access, utilizing technology to coordinate care and deliver care in a personalized high-quality basis, and then augmenting it with reenvisioning what could take place in the home is mission critical and accelerated by COVID," he said, as transcribed by Seeking Alpha. "at's on strategy for us, and we are aggressively investing in and innovating in those categories off a variety of platforms." n Geisinger fires employee for inappropriately accessing 700+ patients' medical records By Jackie Drees G eisinger began notifying more than 700 patients Sept. 18 that one of the Danville, Pa.-based health system's former employees inappropri- ately accessed their medical records. A Geisinger employee alerted the health system's privacy office June 3 that another clinic employee was possibly viewing patient medical records with- out a business reason. Geisinger launched an investigation, which concluded Sept. 8, and found that while the employee was allowed to access medical records as part of their daily job responsibilities, they inappropriately viewed more than 700 patients' records from June 2019-20. The health system said the employee no longer works at Geisinger as a result of the incident. Patient protected health information that may have been viewed by the for- mer employee included names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, med- ical record numbers, addresses and phone numbers. "At Geisinger, protecting our patients' and members' privacy is of the utmost im- portance and we are constantly working on safeguards and protocols to iden- tify incidents such as these so we can prevent such occurrences in the future," Geisinger Chief Privacy Officer Jonathan Friesen said. "Our investigation leads us to believe that this information was not accessed to commit financial fraud or harm; however, out of an abundance of caution we are providing affected patients one year of identity theft protection free of charge." n

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