MDLIVE Adds Chronic Condition Monitoring to Virtual Primary Care Service

Adding tools such as remote vital monitoring and real-time reporting, telehealth provider MDLIVE aims to enhance its virtual primary care service to provide better care for patients with chronic conditions by enabling earlier interventions.

MDLIVE is a provider of virtual medical and behavioral healthcare services. It is a part of Evernorth Health Services, health insurance company Cigna's health services portfolio.

The provider aims to enhance support for patients battling chronic conditions through its virtual primary care service. The telehealth provider will add remote vital monitoring and real-time reporting to provide clinicians access to patient health data between clinic visits.

About 68 percent of patients who had wellness screenings through MDLIVE’s primary care services were found to have at least a single chronic condition, according to the press release.

"This is the first virtual primary care program that will feed insights between the primary care physician, other health providers and the patient to enable better coordination of care," said Maggie Williams, MD, medical director for MDLIVE Virtual Primary Care, in a press release. "Our primary care physicians will work with their patients to personalize a care plan and stay actively engaged to monitor their progress, anticipate health issues and act quickly to address them. This approach will build deeper, more meaningful relationships between doctors and their patients, leading to better health outcomes and lower health care costs."

Starting in 2023, all patients with MDLIVE Virtual Primary Care as a covered plan benefit will gain access to the chronic condition management program. Although it will initially only be extended to hypertension patients, MDLIVE intends to expand access to patients with other chronic conditions.

All participants will work with their MDLIVE primary care doctor to develop a personalized care plan encompassing goals, tests, medication management, and referrals to other health providers. In addition to scheduled virtual visits, patients will be monitored remotely with blood pressure cuffs and blood glucose monitoring devices.

"This is the next evolution in MDLIVE's virtual primary care program as we continue to build services that support the health needs of more patients throughout their health journey," said Jon Salon, president of MDLIVE, in the press release. "Together, Evernorth and MDLIVE are innovating care delivery to create seamless connected experiences to make care easier to access and to improve the health of our patients — however, wherever and whenever they want to receive care."

MDLIVE is the latest in a string of healthcare providers adding remote patient monitoring options.

In November, Nuvance Health created an at-home care program that will provide remote neurological support for patients battling mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Before the implementation of the program, the health system noted the prevalence of MCI and how it affects a relatively large portion of the patient population over 60.

Through the new program, Nuvance integrated remote patient monitoring into care practices, including providing patients with brain-stimulating activities to measure their performance with timely assessments and enabling neurologists to access this information through a digital dashboard.