2026 healthcare trends: Improving access to specialty care is becoming critical

• Key Insight: Learn how specialty telehealth reduces wait times and restores employee productivity.
• What's at Stake: Long specialist delays could increase costs, absenteeism and workforce disengagement.
• Expert Quote: "Faster specialist access improves outcomes and work performance," Bryson Tombridge, Tono Health.
• Source: Bullets generated by AI with editorial review

This is part of a series on healthcare trend predictions for 2026. Read part 1 here.

Long waits for specialists are keeping employees from the care they need, but providing telehealth benefits that improve access can make all the difference.

In 2025, 89% of full-time workers and 25% of part-time workers had access to medical care benefits, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, due to climbing healthcare costs and a spreading physician shortage, utilizing their coverage — especially for specialized care — has become a challenge. 

"We're seeing people go to their primary or urgent care doctors in need of referrals, but it's taking them months to actually see the specialists trained to treat their conditions," says Bryson Tombridge, CEO of medical dermatology care platform Tono Health. "Access to this type of care has become a big pain point and it's only getting worse." 

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A report from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and the National Patient Safety Foundation found that more than 100 million specialty referrals are issued each year. In a survey by AMN Healthcare, new patients in 15 metropolitan areas waited an average of 42 days for OB-GYN and 40 days for gastroenterology appointments. Those seeking dermatology and cardiology appointments had slightly shorter wait times of four to five weeks. Altogether, the difficulty of scheduling follow-up appointments has become a major barrier to care.

The impact of limited accessibility to specialized services may also be broader than leaders realize, according to Tombridge. If care for conditions and underlying causes remain out of reach, more employees will start to rely on emergency rooms and urgent care for treatment because it's quicker. That will not only drive up healthcare costs, but exacerbate the probability of absenteeism and disengagement from employees, he says.

"Employees are suffering," Tombridge says. "They're not productive at work because they're dealing with these painful issues that are impacting their performance and how they show up. But when they're able to access specialists quickly and solve some of those issues, they're finally able to thrive in every area of their lives, including work."

Closing the care gap with comprehensive benefits

The key to improving access to specialized care is to be intentional in the healthcare plan-selection process. It's not enough to rely solely on traditional coverage, Tombridge says, and organizations will need to re-strategize many of their existing approaches.

He urges benefit leaders to consider two things: first, whether their current plan has a specialty telehealth solution or tool available they can opt into, and second, whether they need to look into third-party telehealth platforms like Tono Health, which helps connect patients with dermatologists quickly, as voluntary benefit. Tombridge suggests benefit leaders survey their workforces to have a better understanding of their needs when it comes to specialty care, and then reach out to vendor partners to figure out the best fit for their employees.

Read more: 7 ways benefit managers can realign a burned out workforce

"It's not about the number of benefits you offer, it's about the quality and providing the benefits that people will actually use," Tombridge says. "The relationship between patients and specialized care is critical. It's giving them a moment of relief and building a sense of trust that they'll have access to the best solution for whatever problem they're facing." 

Despite many solutions being relatively low cost and requiring no additional lift, Tombridge recognizes that making impactful change will take time. However, the sooner organizations begin moving in the right direction, the sooner workforces will see better and more holistic access to the specialty care they need.  

"We know the system is broken," Tombridge says. "We need real, innovative, hands-on solutions, and firms will have to get proactive and rise to the challenge of closing the care gap. We don't have a choice."