Employers are investing in virtual care to close healthcare gaps

• Key Insight: Learn why virtual-first primary care is shifting from innovation to expectation.
• What's at Stake: Benefits design, access, and costs may be disrupted across employers and health plans.
• Supporting Data: 44% of employers plan to add virtual primary care within the next year.
  Source: Bullets generated by AI with editorial review

Digital solutions are cementing themselves as part of the healthcare landscape with more organizations signaling a willingness to make them a core part of their benefits offerings.

Forty-four percent of employers are planning to introduce more virtual primary care in the next year, according to a recent report from independent insurance broker Brown & Brown, effectively turning digital-first healthcare solutions from a new innovation to a future expectation. This shift could radically change access to necessary care, address rising costs and improve health outcomes for employees of all ages.     

"The traditional telemedicine that we were all used to are really being taken over by a more virtual-first ecosystem," says Dannielle Sherrets, senior consultant of population health and wellbeing at Brown & Brown. "[As a result,] vendors are building out systems now that can increasingly coordinate whole episodes of care and it's breaking down a lot of the barriers that we've had within the primary care ecosystem for a long time."

Read more: Employees are ditching benefits for their own health apps

Historically, telehealth focused on more passive healthcare needs, such as chronic disease management for conditions like diabetes or heart failure, using home monitoring systems to track patients' health. During the pandemic, it became a critical tool for preventing virus transmission through remote screenings conducted by video or phone. Today, those same tools have evolved beyond urgent or niche uses and can support the full spectrum of healthcare needs at a fraction of the cost of some complex health plans, Sherrets says, making a more concerted virtual approach an increasingly attractive option for leaders.

For example, self-screening tools and digital mental health assessments are helping re-shape preventive care. Specialty or maintenance medications such as GLP-1s can now be delivered directly to patients' with the help of virtual pharmacist guidance, and in-home care is expanding to include less traditional services like infusion therapy — which was once considered too niche for standard coverage. 

"Access is no longer restricted by things like geography or plan designs with virtual care," Sherrets says. "Patients can engage with their care team or their care provider anytime, anywhere. It's reducing the reliance on having to necessarily take off work or be limited by the need for transportation. It's reducing those barriers and improving their access overall."

Making space for virtual care

Fortunately, the lift isn't too heavy for leaders, according to Sherrets. Many comprehensive offerings — such as mental health, gut health and women's health — are becoming embedded as virtual clinics within carrier networks meaning they'll soon become more readily available through health plans rather than relying on employers to adopt them separately. For employers who may not yet have access to these enhanced plans but still want to offer similar benefits, Sherrets suggests leaders look more thoroughly through their existing coverage. Many virtual services can often be included but "hidden in network" or "lost in network," meaning both employers and employees may not be aware they exist and can't take advantage of them.

Read more: How AI is fixing the benefit literacy gap

"The immediate opportunity for employers is to surface these solutions and understand what is available to them that they might not know about," Sherrets says. "Then they need to figure out how and if employees are being or can be navigated to them."

It's important to note that the push for a virtual-first healthcare landscape doesn't eliminate the need for in-person clinics or doctors. If anything, Sherrets says, their contribution will remain critical to improving health outcomes. 

"As we look at this expansion of virtual care it really is important to think about how and if it connects to the physical care environment," Sherrets says. "We have to make sure that if someone in the virtual care ecosystem has to go to a brick and mortar clinic, that those physicians also know what has happened in the virtual care environment so that we're not ruining the continuity of care at the individual level."