Covid was a main driver for the success of virtual GP services but artificial intelligence (AI) will play a big part in helping to to drive the future growth of the service, according to a panel at Laing Buisson’s Private Acute Healthcare Cover Summit in London.
“As you can imagine Covid did us a massive favour,” according to Zoe Sullivan, chief customer officer at Doctor Care Anywhere (DCA), who was speaking at the summit.
She said: “Prior to Covid we were probably doing about 15,000 consultations a month. We now do over 60,000.”
She said that in 2023 DCA delivered about 730,000 appointments.
“Where we need to get to is making sure that our services remain cost-effective and sustainable.
“We really do offer a great service for patients and the key thing we’ve got to remember is accessible care.”
Rising costs
But the rising cost of medical plans is also a serious issue for Dr Luke James, workforce health leader at Mercer Marsh Benefits (MMB).
He said for his company: “The number one thing that we’re talking about is the cost of medical plans – they’ve kind of going through the roof – and the utilisation.”
James, who still works as a doctor for the NHS and also worked with Bupa for 10 years said he brought in the first virtual GP service in 2018.
“When we brought that in, we did it for two main reasons.
“One was added value. We had a lot of noise around – what does my PMI policy give me and for my clients and my customers – we don’t use it that often, we only use it in kind of catastrophic circumstances.
“By bringing in this virtual GP, this was offering a primary care service for the individual.”
But back in 2018, the other main reason for developing the service sounds a lot like the reasoning during Covid.
“The second was – believe it or not even back then – one of our major complaints that we got at Bupa was access to GPs.
“Customers would complain that were having delays in their treatment because it was taking two or three weeks, to get to their GP, to get the referral for their PMI. Which is amazing – even back then.”
“But utilisation was really low. Nobody really used it. And then, of course, we had Covid – and it went through the roof.”
Sustainability
Dr Nikita Patel, medical director for primary care at Vitality, said that the expectations around virtual GP services are now changing.
“Rather than is it sustainable, I think its about how do we make it sustainable.
“I think people’s expectations on PMI are changing – people are looking more to their health and into their well-being.
“We did a survey at Vitality earlier this year. People aren’t choosing PMI just for secondary care services. They want access – the NHS strains aren’t going to be improving anytime soon.
“From a Vitality perspective, we have seen a really large increase in our everyday care use.
“We’ve seen a six-fold increase in our GP consultations as I’m sure a lot of the other insurers have. Only a quarter of those actually go on to secondary care and we’ve employed a lot of strategies about looking at the outliers.
AI is key
For Tim Price, chief product officer at Infermedica the role of AI and Chat GPT type services is key in driving virtual GPs forward.
“From my perspective, there’s maybe three angles to look at this problem. The first one is, is always to start with like the member or the consumer. And it’s about, what is the value for them in this?
“The majority of people just want to get better, they just want their health care concerned, dealt with.
“Virtual GP has become the path of least resistance, and it’s great. Everyone’s used it – I’ve used it.
“It gets you what you need quickly, but actually there are better ways to get some of those results as well.”
But he noted: “You want to be able to invest in actually improving the health of the population you’re serving – and then you’ll see the pay back within the total cost of care.
“From a strategic direction that has to be where it goes to make it sustainable.”
And a part of that can be the development of AI.
Price said: “I think for sure this could be part of the answer. It can be part of bridging the gap between the number of clinicians and the demand.
“But ultimately it will only be a part of the solution.
“You still need really comprehensive. great face-to-face and in person or virtual care to be part of the whole package.”