Mercer’s National survey of Employer-sponsored Health plans noted a significant savings when members have telephone visit access to physicians.
According to the Mercer survey, Telemedicine offerings by large employers surged to 59% this year as compared to the 30% in 2015. Telemedicine plans are also becoming very popular with small to medium size businesses.
The key to the success of the program is utilization of the benefit. From our experience, if the benefit requires a co-pay for the consultation, the utilization will be very low, and the employees will not take advantage of the tremendous benefits of this program. That is the reason our plan requires NO CO-PAY and covers the entire family.
In our agency, we have a group that has a savings YTD of over $200,000 in reduction of medical visits at doctor offices and the ER. It is a proven fact that a viable Telemedicine program can reduce medical claim utilization by as much as 70% if the employee has a direct 800 number to talk to the doctor.
