Hi, everyone. This is Lucas Voss with Becker's
Healthcare. Thanks so much for tuning in to
the Becker's Healthcare podcast series. It's fantastic
to have you. Very exciting topic today, virtual
care, innovation, adoption,
and what's next with MD Life, which we'll
talk about in a second. And joining me
for today's discussion is Tony Calistra, president MD
Life by Evernorth. Tony, thanks so much for
being here today. It's great to have you.
Hi, Lucas. Thanks so much for having me.
Yeah. It's great to have you. If you
could introduce yourself to our audience and just
share a little bit about your role, your
the organization, and your background in health care.
Yeah. I'd be happy to. So I have
the pleasure of leading the team at Evity
Live. We're a virtual care company. We provide
access
of our services to more than 62,000,000 members
throughout our national network of board certified physicians
and licensed therapists, and they are all specially
trained to deliver care virtually. So we partner
with health plans, health systems,
and employers, and we provide urgent care, behavioral
health, primary care, and dermatology.
And we do so across
a variety of different modalities on our platform.
So whether it's telephonic, video, or chat functionality.
And,
our members and our customers, they rely on
us to solve some of the the common
barriers that they face in the industry today.
So that's easily accessible health care, cost effective,
high quality care, and and a compliment to
their more traditional care care delivery models.
Yeah. Tony, it's so great to have you
because, again, it's this is such an interesting
topic, and it certainly
developed so much over the last couple of
years. Again, if we think about the pandemic,
right, completely different to what it is today.
And and last year, we were hearing a
lot of talk on on the consumer enthusiasm
for virtual k waning a little bit with
post pandemic.
Now it's sort of changing. Right? More resurgent
of interest, again, with direct to consumer offerings
being more prevalent for for folks. Right? Weight
loss, hair loss, sexual health,
other conditions
that impact overall health and lifestyles. There's a
lot happening
right now.
Where does MD Live see consumers
leaning into using virtual care as we head
into 2026
here?
Yeah. Lucas, it's a it's a really important
question, and we're we discuss this with many
of our clients every day. I think it's
important to start with a few statistics. First
of all, virtual care utilization is almost 30%
higher than it was pre pandemic. Yes. So
while it's not as high as it was
during the pandemic when there were literally no
other options,
we still are significantly higher because of that
acceleration
and adoption
during the pandemic. In fact, we just recently
did a consumer research study that showed that
forty three percent of all insured
adults are open to receiving care virtually. But,
actually, I think the more important statistic that
we learned from that study was that thirty
percent prefer it to be
over in person care. Mhmm. So we know
that there's demand out there, and you mentioned
a couple of the reasons whether it's
this increased demand for the popularity of the
the weight loss medications or lifestyle conditions. But
there are also opportunities to go well beyond
just those conditions that we see on the
on the television every day and every night.
There's a lot more demand that we're seeing
for
those conditions that are not low acuity, episodic,
or those lifestyle conditions that that we we
discussed. There's a tremendous demand for much more
longitudinal products
like our virtual primary care or behavioral health
solutions that are ongoing and not episodic one
and done,
or some of the things that we're seeing
on the television.
Couple of things we're we're trying to do,
Lucas, to
continue to drive that adoption. I think it's
really important.
We're focused on a lot of innovations that
enhance that patient experience. So if you think
about how do we increase the value that
we deliver very specifically, we have to expand
our clinical capabilities
Mhmm. To meet some of the demands that
that we've already alluded to. Primary care, behavioral
care, chronic condition management, weight loss, the sexual
health men's and women's health, etcetera. But there's
also other things like preventive screenings and other
specialized
conditions that we see demand in the marketplace,
not just through d two c channels, but
also through through our channels with our health
plan and and health system partners.
You've touched on what you're trying to do,
right, to drive that adoption
or continuing to drive that adoption as it
as it again picks up.
I'd be curious to know what you're hearing
from
payers too about sort of the current and
future challenges
with virtual care for virtual care providers.
Yeah. This is probably not a novel answer.
I think I've heard this answer on a
few of your your other podcasts in the
past, but one thing that we hear all
the time is there's way too many point
solutions.
Yeah. There's too many options. Members don't know
where to go. They don't know what to
do when they get overwhelmed. They just revert
back to what they know, which
when you're relating it to virtual care, they
go back to brick and mortar or they
just delay care.
So there's also
a huge lack of coordination and data sharing
amongst those providers, which puts that onus on
the patient when there are too many different
point solutions.
Where we feel fortunate where we can help
a lot of our our customers is our
physicians can help unlock the value of all
those different phone solutions and get them to
the most appropriate clinically
appropriate referral as opposed to just throwing them
back into the to the ocean, and
those members often have options of 12 or
or even more
different point solutions to choose from. The clinical
provider guided care, we think, is a real
differentiator.
Yeah.
Are there any other challenges that stick stick
out for you in the market itself that
that are important?
Yeah. There's there's another that I mentioned because
I think, again, this is prevalent across the
entire industry is
our payer partners specifically are asking for help
in educating the members to change the this
evolving perception of what is virtual care and
what can virtual care do. Yes. So as
we continue to educate them that the range
of services is much more than just this
very low
acute episodic care. It's
so much more than we can provide in
a convenient virtual setting. And knowing now that
statistic I I alluded to earlier, that 30
would prefer a virtual setting, We need to
make sure that we help our our partners
communicate to their member bases
about longitudinal
services like behavioral health or virtual primary care,
some of the wellness exams and laboratory referrals
that we do for our members every day.
Tony, we've talked a lot about challenges. Right?
We wanna talk about the positive tool a
little bit
or at least the the the opportunities
that we're seeing.
What are some of those opportunities,
that you're hearing from payers specifically for
virtual care providers?
Yeah. Again, probably not a novel answer, but
it's something we're focused on every day is
how do we become more personalized with our
members with every visit and every interaction that
we have. So the members want that, and
they expect that. They see that in every
other facet of their lives today. So how
do we make it
more personalized at every turn, whether it be
the initial intake to follow-up care,
down the line after
treatment is delivered?
Our ability to offer several different modalities
is the start of that. So whether it's
telephonic or if a member prefers just to
chat or prefers to be on video, the
ability to meet them in a preferred modality
is obviously one really important,
aspect of starting off on the right foot
with the members. The second is
there is a huge opportunity for chronic condition
management and behavioral care. As all of us
have heard many times in the industry, the
shortages with with providers and also the the
rising epidemic of
these chronic conditions across the country. We have
to be there and and make sure that
our members that have access to us understand
that we can help take care of those
those conditions as well as the sore throat
and the and the pink eye that typically
people think of when they think of urgent
telephonic care.
Yeah. And lastly, the one other thing I
would mention that's coming up more and more
often is our ability to provide fast access
to care as that first point of contact.
Mhmm. So when a member is not sure
of the severity of whatever their condition might
be, we can either treat that or we
can help triage the member to that, again,
clinically appropriate, either full solution or site of
care if necessary. And I think those are
just three things that our our partners are
asking us for help with as as opportunities
for the future.
Yeah. And I think, again,
all three of them are in general are
are very important. I think two of them
come back to what we started our conversation
with, right, is that consumer attention of, like,
fast access, that consumer experience. But then the
other thing, the personalization
piece is so important as well that you've
mentioned. And and what plays a big role,
I feel like, in that personalization piece is
the use
of AI right now, and and we'd be
remiss not to talk about it. I think
it's an important piece to to providing more
personalized care in certain instances,
and it can certainly play a transformative role
in health care. We're seeing that right now.
I'd love to get your thoughts on this
and how you are
applying GenAI to upper GenAI to operations with
MD Life and and again, just your general
thoughts on on how this is going.
Of course. So AI is obviously it's unlocking
new levels of efficiency across every different industry.
Again, pick up the paper and not hear
about the latest in AI and and some
of the new
innovations that are occurring across across the world
today. So we use it to improve the
patient and provider experience. We we have the
ability to process now enormous amounts of just
unstructured data Mhmm. In tasks that may have
taken hours or even days to complete can
now be done in seconds.
So the key is how do we make
sure that we use AI responsibly and ethically,
and we have a whole center of excellence
that's that's committed to making sure anything that
we incorporate AI into is done in the
right way as efficiently as possible, but also
keeping in mind the the responsibility we have
to our members and to our
our customers.
We use that to streamline those provider tasks.
In essence, it allows them to spend more
time with the patient. Instead of doing administrative
duties or tasks that they would have otherwise
had to do, we can
solve a lot of those issues and give
the patient more time with the doctor as
opposed to getting them in and out real
quickly. And and,
we we know what that can turn into,
a lesser lesser quality care.
So I I absolutely see AI as an
incredible opportunity.
It's going to make
providers' lives easier. It's gonna deliver better care
to the member. And, ultimately,
we all have the same goal of improving
that member experience and improving the outcomes, and
AI will absolutely,
help us do so.
Yeah. Tony, I feel like with all of
these changes and all of these developments, we'll
we'll just have to meet again in a
couple months and talk again. Right? I would
look forward to it. It's changing by the
day. Yep. There'll be something new to talk
about. Again, Tony, thank you so much for
your time and insights today. It's fantastic to
have you, and we also want to thank
our podcast sponsor MD live by Evernorth. You
can tune in to more podcasts from Becker's
Health Care by visiting our podcast page at
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