Dr. Lyle Berkowitz, CEO of KeyCare, tries to make it easy on health systems. His is the first Epic-based virtual care company – Epic having the largest market share among EHR vendors, that makes starting up with telemedicine quite simple for a great many provider organizations.

But the goal of KeyCare also is simplicity – simplicity in quickly and widely expanding a health system's physician panel. And that is where Berkowitz sees a lot of movement in 2025 – from companies like his that supply health systems with a network of virtual care providers working on a telehealth platform.

We interviewed Berkowitz, asking him for his look at the year ahead in telemedicine. He said the benefits that additional physicians working remotely can bring to health systems will really hit home this year and push the virtual care paradigm that much more forward.

Though it should be noted, bullish predictions likely are contingent on Congress extending telehealth flexibilities past March 2025. The December 2024 Continuing Resolution with a years-long extension was dropped, and the subsequent emergency bill only got the extension until March, kicking the can down the road.

Q. What is one of the biggest changes you foresee for telemedicine this year?

A. Phase 1 of telehealth is dead. This year we will see the continued rise of Telehealth 2.0.

The first phase consisted of isolated telehealth, in which virtual care services were not truly integrated into health systems. In contrast, Phase 2 of telehealth consists of a re-visioned model of care that enables doctors to automate, virtualize and delegate the numerous less-complex, routine tasks that do not need to be performed via office visits.

In this world, many of these activities will be accomplished online by virtual providers and non-physician team members who are empowered to manage stable patients via evidence-based protocols and similar rules to help automate their care. By expanding access and delivering more consistent care, organizations will increase efficiency and improve the quality of care.

Compared with traditional practice workflows, office-based physicians will see a smaller number of more complex patients themselves, while their patient panels would expand because they'll supervise a team that cares for a greater number of more stable patients.

Rather than struggling to add more doctors in a competitive market, health systems will outsource routine care to a tech-empowered virtual care team and expand patient access in a scalable manner.

Q. You suggest health systems this year will increase their physician panel sizes via telemedicine. How will this happen?

A. Health systems will increasingly partner with virtual teams to amplify their doctors' abilities to care for patients by effectively increasing panel sizes. The issue isn't a shortage of physicians but a shortage of efficient use. Implementing a virtual team connected to the doctor is the way to achieve this – not asking doctors to do more.

These telehealth partners will focus on virtual care, which is more efficient than doctors juggling both in-office and virtual care. Virtual care should not be about increasing doctors' productivity from 22 to 24 patients a day, which no doctor wants.

Instead, it's about creating virtual care teams that handle routine care efficiently through automation, allowing office-based doctors to focus on complex cases. This team-based approach will be crucial to sustained success in telehealth.

Ultimately, health systems want to make sure their patients always come to their front door for any type of care, from routine issues to complex situations. By working with connected virtual care partners, they will start to ensure that access to their health system is as ubiquitous as any competition, and their quality is better as a result of the care coordination that ensues.

Q. You say health systems this year will see more success with patient engagement and patient retention thanks to telemedicine. How so?

A. Patient wait times continue to grow across virtually all medical specialties, putting patients at risk of worse outcomes and leaving health systems at risk of losing patient volume to competitors like urgent care clinics. To overcome these issues, health systems will develop new strategies to expand capacity to ensure their patients have access to timely care.

Engaging and retaining patients is critical for health systems to prevent leakage and preserve revenue as patients age and require more medical services. When patients are unable to get timely appointments with their regular doctors, they are likely to seek other sources of care.

By embracing virtual options for routine care, as well as urgent but minor issues such as rashes and ear infections, health systems can increase capacity, reduce wait times, and provide relief to busy, overworked clinicians.

However, to ensure the success of their virtual care initiatives, health systems must make it a priority to proactively communicate all available virtual care options to patients.

Follow Bill's HIT coverage on LinkedIn: Bill Siwicki
Email him: bsiwicki@himss.org
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