For years, the healthcare conversation has focused on one issue: the rising cost of medical insurance.
But there is another problem that deserves just as much attention: People are struggling to access everyday healthcare when they actually need it.
Employers continue to face significant increases in the cost of providing medical benefits. With budgets already stretched, many have little choice but to pass a portion of those increases to employees through higher payroll deductions, higher deductibles and greater out-of-pocket costs.
The result is an unfortunate contradiction: Employees can have medical insurance and still struggle to afford healthcare.
For many families, medical insurance has increasingly become protection against major or catastrophic expenses. That’s important, but it doesn’t necessarily solve the everyday need to talk with a medical professional about an illness, get help with a mental health concern, refill a prescription or address a health issue before it becomes something bigger.
And cost is only half of the equation.
The Other Barrier: Time
Getting care can mean waiting days or weeks for an appointment, leaving work, driving to a clinic, sitting in a waiting room or spending hours at urgent care.
For an employee balancing work and family responsibilities, that’s not convenient healthcare access. It’s friction.
When care is expensive or difficult to access, people often delay it. A relatively simple health issue can become more disruptive, to the individual, their family and their employer. In a recent study it was identified that 40% of people with coverage avoid getting the care they need because of cost. Sadly, for the majority of them, the conditions worsened.
That’s the need employers should be thinking about:
How do we give people simple, timely and affordable access to everyday healthcare without adding another major expense?
A Different Front Door to Healthcare
Whole Person Virtual Care was designed specifically around that need.
Whole Person is not insurance and doesn’t replace medical coverage. It supplements it by providing access to an independent virtual medical practice that has delivered more than 6 million patient encounters.
You do not need to change insurance carrier or your broker; it is a simple supplement that positively impacts your company and your employees.
Members can connect with real providers, generally within 30 minutes, from virtually any device and with a $0 visit fee and no visit limits.
The practice integrates Acute & Urgent Care, Family Care, Mental Healthcare and Weight Management, with providers able to prescribe medications, authorize refills and order labs when medically appropriate. A subscription can cover the employee, spouse and eligible dependents through age 26.
Because it isn’t insurance, employers can also make Whole Person available beyond the traditional benefits-eligible population—including full-time, part-time, seasonal and 1099 workers.
The concept is intentionally simple:
Make healthcare easier to reach. Make it affordable to use. Make it available when people actually need it.
For employers struggling with healthcare budgets, the answer doesn’t always have to be providing more insurance.
Sometimes the bigger opportunity is giving people better access to care.
For those that do not offer medical coverage.
Many employers with less than 50 employees simply do not offer a medical plan because of expense. Whole Person can be provided to as a benefit very affordably ($15-$18 per employee per month). Give your employees access to care. The impact to your business will be less absenteeism, less scheduling disruption, healthier employees and a positive culture of caring.
Let’s schedule a 15-minute call to discuss and strategize.
David Huerta, CEO & Co-Founder
David.Huerta@WPVirtualCare.com (813) 494-8654
