The numbers add up for Teladoc, Rent-A-Center

In its first full year of contracting with Teladoc for telehealth services, Rent-A-Center reported savings of more than $700,000 in healthcare expenses and lost productivity.

And at least one life saved, too.

Those are pretty heady numbers for both the Plano, Texas-based national retail chain, which boasts 12,300 employees in more than 2,700 locations nationwide, and the Dallas-based provider of telehealth services, which contracted with Rent-A-Center beginning Jan. 1, 2011. More importantly, they offer strong proof to the value of telehealth to a healthcare industry desperately trying to cut back on wasteful spending, unnecessary ER visits and impractical trips to the doctor’s office.

“It is still a relatively new thing out there,” says Steve Spratt, Rent-A-Center’s senior director of compensation benefits. “We knew a little bit about doc-in-the-box-type deals with cameras and stuff” when the idea was first broached in 2010 by the company’s new senior vice president of human resources. “Teladoc had very good word-of-mouth, and it fit our co-worker profile very well.”

“They’ve really embraced telehealth as an integrated part of their benefits package,” adds Jason Gorevic, Teladoc’s CEO, who has seen his business grow from 1.5 million members in 2010 to 3 million in 2011 to an estimated 6 million by the end of this year.

“The one question we all wondered about was, ‘Would you be able to get medical advice from someone you’ve never met?’” Spratt says.

Rent-A-Center management aggressively promoted the service in late 2010 just prior to its launch, publicizing it in posters, slideshows and postcards as well as the company manual. Employees pay an extra $1.50 per month as part of their health plan contribution, with the funds earmarked to a “Consult Bank,” and are given free access to Teladoc physicians via contact information printed on the back of their health plan ID card and in their benefits booklet.

“It’s so easy,” says Spratt. “You call them, and about 10 minutes later, they call back.”

Among the statistics compiled by Teladoc at the end of the first year: 1,312 consultations, at a cost of $38 a visit, with an average time spent of 22 minutes. According to a survey of the company’s employees, without access to telehealth services, those employees would have visited their primary care physician (40 percent, at a cost of $139 per visit), seen a specialist or gone to an urgent care clinic (33 percent, $120), gone to the nearest hospital ER (12 percent, $811) or done nothing (15 percent).

Factoring in the amount of work time lost (an average of three to four hours per medical visit), Teladoc and Rent-A-Center officials have projected a savings of $718,654 in 2011.

“That’s an extra three of four hours (per employee per visit),” says Spratt. “This allows them to stay here and get healthy a lot quicker, as opposed to spending half a day at an urgent care center or running around trying to find a doctor or a hospital.”

Spratt says he was surprised by the amount of use in the first year. He’d expected 15 percent of his workforce to make use of the telehealth service at some point, but says the number was closer to 25 percent. Gorevic, meanwhile, says that percentage traditionally rises as employees get used to the service and come to realize its benefits.

According to Teladoc, 96 percent of the RAC employees surveyed would use the telehealth service again, and every one rated the service as “good” or “excellent.” The five most common diagnoses were sinus problems, sore throat, upper respiratory infection, bronchitis and rash.

“The typical use is for acute but non-severe” cases, says Gorevic, who plans to use the Rent-A-Center business plan as a “best practices” case study in future employee benefits conferences.

Sometimes, though, those cases can lead to live-saving results.

According to both Gorevic and Spratt, a 38-year-old Rent-A-Center employee in Georgia contacted Teladoc while experiencing chest pains, and was diagnosed as being in the early stages of a heart attack. Gorevic says the man reported that he’d only contacted Teladoc because it was quick and convenient, and that diagnosis probably saved his life.

“The input that we can have on people’s lives – the quality of people’s lives – certainly goes beyond the day-to-day diagnoses,” says Gorevic.
 

Eric Wicklund

Editor of mHIMSS.org

Follow Eric on Twitter @eriwick