Broken Arrow City Council
Meeting of: June 20, 2022
Title:
title
Approval of and authorization to execute a renewal for Teladoc HealthiestYou services effective July 1, 2022
End
Background:
The City's broker for health insurance services has gone out for bid to assess telehealth options for the City's health plan. The primary purpose for assessing the current telehealth option, Teladoc HealthiestYou, was the current cost for a robust telehealth platform relative to the low utilization of several of the value-added service offerings.
Plan savings resulting from telemedicine is often realized through steerage to telehealth verses the more costly place of service offerings, such as urgent care or emergency room for non-emergent services. At the time of the initial rollout of the telehealth option in 2020, the COVID pandemic created significant restrictions in access to care. In addition, a high number of orthopedic and musculoskeletal diagnosis were prevalent among the population. To promote greater access to care and help members avoid unnecessary risk exposures of in-office visits during the pandemic as well as to mitigate unnecessary utilization at more costly emergency room and urgent care settings for non-emergent procedures, the most robust telehealth option was selected in 2020. This offering (Teladoc HealthiestYou) includes traditional general medicine, back pain, behavioral health, dermatology, and nutrition services. While this robust selection was initially viewed as a reinvestment and value-add to employees during a national pandemic, low utilization over time has resulted in a lower return on investment than initially anticipated. For this reason, the telehealth product was marketed to assess whether an alternative telehealth package from the current provider, or from another vendor, would better suit the evolving needs of our health plan.
Utilization
Service Type
2022 (through April)
2021
2020
General Medicine
12.1%
14.3%
11.2%
Menta...
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