Telehealth: ‘It took a pandemic’ to show everyone why it’s useful, Amwell CEO says

Amwell CEO Roy Schoenberg sits down with Yahoo Finance’s Anjalee Khemlani at the 2022 HLTH Conference to discuss the evolution of telehealth and how critical it became during the coronavirus pandemic.

Video Transcript

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RACHELLE AKUFFO: Telehealth boomed during the pandemic, but it's seen a steady decline as people return to in-person activities. Our Anjalee Khemlani sat down with Amwell CEO Roy Schoenberg to discuss the state of the industry and the path forward post-pandemic. Let's take a listen.

ROY SCHOENBERG: You know, we've been walking the desert for-- I don't know-- 12 years, 13 years, trying to persuade people that you can actually deliver good health care over technology. And it took a pandemic to convince everybody. I think coming out of the pandemic, it really is a new world by way of how this technology is being utilized.

And I think the language we used before COVID, when we talk about telehealth, has to change as well. Most people before COVID thought of telehealth as urgent care, the apps you download to quickly see a clinician. And I'm not mocking it. It's a great thing, especially when it's winter and cold and all that kind of stuff. And we do a lot of business with that as well. That part of the business has gone up like crazy during COVID for obvious reasons.

And then when things started opening up, people had other options. It went down, nowhere near where it started, way, way, way higher than where it was because people now know what it is. But it got a reality check a little bit. It kind of declined to a certain level.

But the other part that people don't talk about is the use of telehealth by clinicians, not by patients. This is the case where doctors and nurses are using telehealth to follow up with their own patients. So the patients are not acquiring it. The clinicians are prescribing it.

And something in the water, I don't know what, but post-COVID, that part, it also kind of skyrocketed during COVID. That part kept on going and is still keeping going. So the volume of telehealth that we do is actually continuing to rise above COVID level, not below COVID level, because of that huge adoption of telehealth by the clinician side of the world.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: That's very interesting. And I know in general, there is a use for consultation as well, right? Doctor to doctor. There's so many avenues. Talk to me about remote technology and how that fits into it, because I know that that's also something that took off. Are you finding ways to make it fit into the puzzle?

ROY SCHOENBERG: Well, it fits into the puzzle whether we like it or not. We're a cog in the wheel. I think the one thing that has become very apparent is that people somehow, some way understood after COVID that patients in the future are going to be surrounded with technology as part of their health care. And that's a great thing. I mean, if you think about even our parents age, who are at home, the fact that health care can set up shop next to them and watch over them is amazing.

And if you can connect that also with their clinicians so that there's kind of the constant companionship with the patient in their environment, health care experience becomes a much, much better place. Some of it is telehealth. Some of it is synchronous. Some of it is asynchronous. Some of it is devices. Some of it is monitoring and sensors and all that kind of stuff. They're all part of the same story that technology now post-COVID understandably has a much bigger role in managing the health care of all of us.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: And yet there's still a debate about whether or not it will be a tech-first system and a tech-first industry ever. What do you think?

ROY SCHOENBERG: I think this is actually not a technology question. I think that's a people question. You know, when I want to get my health care, I actually want to get it from people that are-- that I trust, brands that I trust, organizations that I trust.

I think that in health care, more than in any other technology or any other domain, technologies that come to the rescue or come to help need to find their way to assist the brands to help with their relationship with patients rather than replace them.

You know, there's a lot of discussion about artificial intelligence. Maybe bots can become the new physician and all that kind of stuff. That is-- I think it's a-- it's kind of a gut, quick to react kind of thought. But we don't want a bot to care for us. But if you told me that there is a way to assist your doctor in working with you and interacting with you through some way of automated communication, but it extends your doctor interaction with you, that's a little bit of a different story. So I think it's not going to be tech first, but that's OK by design.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: And a final question for you, how do we avoid the bloat in the system? Because currently the idea is that health care and health tech is supposed to help reduce costs. And at the same time, a lot of it is cash pay, or, you know, it comes as a second thought. It's not really part of the system yet.

ROY SCHOENBERG: I think, you know, that's part of the first decade of experimentation of anything. Experiments, like-- you know, just like pharmaceutical investments and experimentation of drugs, it's very expensive at the beginning. If it delivers value, it becomes part of the story.