Impact of Remote and Virtual Care Models on the Sustainability of Small Health Care Businesses: Perceptual Analysis of Small Clinics, Physician Offices, and Pharmacies in Colorado

Abstract

Background Lockdowns and shelter-in-place orders during COVID-19 have accelerated the adoption of remote and virtual care (RVC) models, potentially including telehealth, telemedicine, and internet-based electronic physician visits (e-visits) for remote consultation, diagnosis, and care, deterring small health care businesses including clinics, physician offices, and pharmacies from aligning resources and operations to new RVC realities. Current perceptions of small health care businesses toward remote care, particularly perceptions of whether RVC adoption will synergistically improve business sustainability, would highlight the pros and cons of rapidly adopting RVC technology among policy makers. Objective This study aimed to assess the perceptions of small health care businesses regarding the impact of RVC on their business sustainability during COVID-19, gauge their perceptions of their current levels of adoption of and satisfaction with RVC models and analyze how well that aligns with their perceptions of the current business scenario (SCBS), and determine whether these perceptions influence their view of their midterm sustainability (SUST). Methods We randomly sampled small clinics, physician offices, and pharmacies across Colorado and sought assistance from a consulting firm to collect survey data in July 2020. Focal estimated study effects were compared across the three groups of small businesses to draw several insights. Results In total, 270 respondents, including 82 clinics, 99 small physician offices, and 89 pharmacies, across Colorado were included. SRVC and SCBS had direct, significant, and positive effects on SUST. However, we investigated the effect of the interaction between SRVC and SCBS to determine whether RVC adoption aligns with their perceptions of the current business scenario and whether this interaction impacts their perception of business sustainability. Effects differed among the three groups. The interaction term SRVC×SCBS was significant and positive for clinics (P=.02), significant and negative for physician offices (P=.05), and not significant for pharmacies (P=.76). These variations indicate that while clinics positively perceived RVC alignment with the current business scenario, the opposite held true for small physician offices. Conclusions As COVID-19 continues to spread worldwide and RVC adoption progresses rapidly, it is critical to understand the impact of RVC on small health care businesses and their perceptions of long-term survival. Small physician practices cannot harness RVC developments and, in contrast with clinics, consider it incompatible with business survival during and after COVID-19. If small health care firms cannot compete with RVC (or synergistically integrate RVC platforms into their current business practices) and eventually become nonoperational, the resulting damage to traditional health care services may be severe, particularly for critical care delivery and other important services that RVC cannot effectively replace. Our results have implications for public policy decisions such as incentive-aligned models, policy-initiated incentives, and payer-based strategies for improved alignment between RVC and existing models.