Doctor on Demand Stats Offer Insight Into Telmedicine Trends

Recently, direct-to-consumer telemedicine provider Doctor on Demand released some statistics on its performance in 2017. While some of the report was self-congratulatory, I still think the data points are worth looking at, especially for clinicians.

For starters, it’s worth noting that the company now considers itself a fully integrated medical practice. For example, it’s begun offering lab testing services through Quest Diagnostics and Lab Corp. as part of a program to control chronic conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels.

Another factoid the stats offer is that its physicians are generally in their mid-career; apparently, Doctor on Demand’s average physician has 15 years of experience. The company doesn’t offer any perspective on why that might be, but it suggests to me that clinicians who participate are both confident that they can manage care remotely and comfortable with technology.

Why is that the case? My guess is that this work may not be attractive to younger doctors, who might feel uneasy managing patients online given their lack of experience. It also suggests older physicians, some of whom still consider telemedicine to be a poor substitute for face-to-face care, probably aren’t engaging with telemedicine either.

Other data provided by Doctor on Demand includes the top reasons for visits included treatment of cold and flu, prescription refills and infections, which isn’t surprising. It also notes that mental health visits climbed 240% over 2016, with anxiety, depression and stress being the most common symptoms treated. This is more interesting, as it suggests that among other problems, consumers feel they aren’t getting their mental health needs met in real life.

Meanwhile, when it comes to the company’s self-reported benefit statistics, I’m taking them with a large grain of salt, but I found them to be worth a look nonetheless. The company says it saved its patients nearly $1 billion in healthcare costs and saved over 1.6 million hours that would otherwise have been spent in doctor’s waiting rooms. These results were allegedly generated by a base of 1 million patients, according to the San Francisco Business Times.

I’m not writing this to suggest that Doctor on Demand is better or worse than other telemedicine companies and video services offered by privately-employed physicians or hospital telemedicine services. Still, I got a kick out of learning what trends a well-positioned telemedicine service was seeing in the marketplace. While Doctor on Demand’s results may not reflect the market as a whole, they certainly offer food for thought.

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

   

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