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As 2021 begins, COVID-19 continues to upend nearly every type of business in Maine. But perhaps none have been affected as much as the health care industry.
Almost overnight, hospitals, clinics and other providers have become ground zero in the greatest public health crisis of a century. Doctors, nurses and countless other health care workers have been hailed as heroes.
It’s now clear that the demands on health care won’t abate any time soon. Meanwhile, three trends are likely to influence health care delivery and health care insurance in Maine over the year ahead.
1. The challenges of labor supply and demand will continue and probably grow worse
The use of remote technologies to deliver medical care has become big business during the pandemic but is more than a passing fad, a panel of health industry experts said at the 2020 Mainebiz Health Care Forum, held virtually last Thursday.
The panel, led by the Maine Bureau of Insurance’s director of consumer health care, Joanne Rawlings-Sekunda, told a group of nearly 200 registrants why they should pay attention to the growing popularity of virtual care, and how it may ultimately benefit the bottom line for their businesses.
The use of telemedicine or telehealth, as it’s sometimes called has skyrocketed since the start of the pandemic. One measure, cited by Rawlings-Sekunda and by a Mainebiz feature in September: After a national average of 13,000 telehealth visits a week by Medicare beneficiaries before the public health emergency, that number shot to 1.7 million by the end of April.