| Virginia Mercury
QuickVisitMD, a new bilingual telehealth service, launched this week to serve patients in Virginia and West Virginia.
Dr. Ankur Fadia, an emergency medicine specialist, said his time spent working in rural hospitals inspired him to spearhead the initiative.
“I see firsthand how often people struggle to get timely care for relatively simple problems. Patients who do not have good insurance coverage or easy access to care often wait longer, get sicker, and end up in the ER later than they otherwise might,” he said.
He’s also witnessed patients with transportation hurdles end up in the ER via ambulance, which is a quick but expensive solution for patients. When uninsured people come to them seeking emergency care, hospitals often end up absorbing the cost.
Fadia aims for his telehealth service to help people get at least some primary care treatment safely, quickly and virtually.
The launch marks the latest expansion of telehealth options in the state. Last year The Health Wagon in Wise County and UVA Health in Charlottesville partnered to distribute a telehealth tool to uninsured families.
Telehealth has surged in the state in recent years, according to a VCU study, but rural broadband access issues have still posed a barrier to some would-be users. Another barrier Fadia has witnessed is language
About 11.6% of Virginian residents and 2.4% of West Virginian residents are Hispanic, according to U.S. Census data, and for some of these people, English is a second language that they may not speak fluently.
“My platform handles everything in Spanish,” Fadia said, including the medical questionnaire, diagnosis, prescriptions, the patient portal and after-visit summaries. “That was important to me because I have seen how much language can affect access to care.”
He also aimed his pricing model to support people that might struggle to afford care. Visits can range from $59 to $149, with a price match option if patients can prove they’d pay a lower price elsewhere for the same service they receive.
“In my ER work, many patients tell me that their premiums and out-of-pocket costs keep going up, and I think that absolutely affects when and how people seek care,” he said. “More broadly, I wanted to take away as many barriers as possible for the kinds of concerns that can be treated safely in this setting.”
Fadia said he hopes his service can help people when they fall through other healthcare cracks, but emphasized it is not meant to totally replace primary care and health insurance coverage.
The telehealth launch is a solution that’s “narrow in scope,” he said, at a time where patients, providers and lawmakers alike are navigating growing healthcare strains.
Congress did not renew special ACA subsidies — contributing to 33,000 and counting Virginians dropping their insurance — and Virginia hospitals and health care systems are bracing for federal changes to Medicaid that will take effect early next year. State lawmakers are still finalizing how Virginia’s next state budget could help.
“Virginia has to be aggressive in how we contend with those impacts,” Gov. Abigail Spanberger said earlier this week.
The budget must be resolved in the coming weeks so that new laws reliant on it can take effect on July 1. QuickVisitMD doesn’t treat children or offer emergency care. For more details, visit the website.