HONOLULU – Both members of the Hawaii Medical Service Association (HMSA), part of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, and non-members will be able to access online care services through American Well’s Online Healthcare Marketplace platform.
With the service open to all 1.3 million residents of Hawaii, the platform provides HMSA with net new business from non-members, as well as providing a “sound business model to deliver healthcare to the uninsured,” said Roy Schoenberg, MD, CEO of American Well.
“The uninsured can go to the public health site and be in front of a healthcare environment,” he said. “This is a nonsubsidized solution.”
Lynne Dunbrack, program director for Health Industry Insights, an IDC company, said American Well’s platform has the potential to increase access to healthcare services, if only for those with access to technology.
The challenge will be access to technology for certain populations, she said, citing the inverse corollary between lower income and education and access to technology and the direct corollary between lower income and poorer health risks and status.
That said, the platform offers an attractive means of reaching out to the “invincibles,” the working 18- to 34-year-old segment of the uninsured population who don’t want to buy insurance but are willing to buy service on an episodic level, Dunbrack said.
Michael Stollar, vice president of HMSA, said the response rate to online care services both nationally and locally is “quite high.” HMSA saw value in the platform’s ability to offer choice, convenience and accessibility valuable to both members and non-members, he said.
“Working professionals expressed great interest in using this tool,” he said. “The young invincibles view this program as a means to obtain healthcare services.”
Hawaii is unique in that it has a robust public benefit for children and adults and has had an employer-based health insurance mandate, the Hawaii Prepaid Health Care Act, since 1974. At 9.5 percent, Hawaii has one of the lowest uninsured rates in the United States, according to a recent CDC study.
A staff member of the state’s Legislature pointed out that Hawaii has an established telehealth infrastructure for the rural population and doubted that residents would use online healthcare services because the mandate requires employers to offer healthcare coverage and pay most of the premiums for employees who work more than 20 hours per week.
That said, struggling smaller businesses and the rising cost of physician air travel from island to island may make online healthcare services “the next phase in a more consumer-driven” healthcare delivery system, the staff person said.