America's Benefit Specialist October 2023

NOTEWORTHY

company did so by phone, it’s critical for insurers to foster member trust by providing well-trained, compassionate contact center staffers. When asked to rate the quality of telephone support they receive across eight industries, healthcare ranked in the top three, with banks in the top slot, followed by health providers and health insurance. In healthcare, the findings revealed that 34.7% of those surveyed said that a conversation with their insurer was hampered by a language barrier. As the number of Ameri cans who speak a language other than English in their home tripled between 1980 and 2019, it’s critical that health insur ance phone support includes multi-language capabilities to provide equitable customer service to all members. Furthermore, an overwhelming majority of respondents (89.1%) want phone representatives who are well-versed in healthcare. Among the respondents who ranked health insurance companies unfavorably for phone support, 45.7% said the representative did not understand their issue. The findings also revealed that 52% of respondents indicated they waited too long to speak to a representative and 43.3% had to repeat the reason for the call after being transferred. FOR FIRST TIME, OVERWEIGHT AND OBESITY RANKED AMONG TOP FIVE TELEHEALTH DIAGNOSES IN THE MIDWEST AND NORTHEAST In May, overweight and obesity joined the top five telehealth diagnoses in both the Midwest and Northeast, entering the rankings at number five in both regions, according to FAIR Health’s Monthly Telehealth Regional Tracker. It was the first time overweight and obesity had appeared among the top five telehealth diagnoses nationally or in any region since the launch of the Telehealth Tracker in 2020. The data represent the privately insured population, including Medicare Advan tage and excluding Medicare Fee-for-Service and Medicaid. In May, the diagnosis of overweight and obesity was rising in the telehealth diagnosis rankings nationally and in the South and West as well, but had not yet made the top five. A

possible explanation for the rise of this telehealth diagnosis was the increasing popularity of GLP-1 agonist drugs, such as Ozempic, for weight loss. In another trend in May that could be related, endocrine and metabolic disorders moved up one spot from number four to number three in the telehealth diagnosis rankings in the South, and from number five to number four in the West, while remaining stable at number five nationally. Physicians may use the diagnosis of endocrine and meta bolic disorders when treating patients with GLP-1 agonists for weight loss, as obesity can be considered an endocrine or metabolic disorder. National telehealth utilization increased 1.9% in May, from 5.3% of medical claim lines in April to 5.4% in May.1 The in crease followed a decrease in April. In May, telehealth utiliza tion also increased in three of the four U.S. census regions— the Northeast (3.3%), South (4.9%) and West (2.7%)—while remaining unchanged in the Midwest. In May, among the national top five diagnoses via asyn chronous telehealth, the percentage of asynchronous telehealth claim lines for hypertension fell nationally and in every region, after rising the previous month. In the North east, even though hypertension fell from 22.4% of asyn chronous telehealth claim lines to 19.9%, it rose from the second-ranked to the first-ranked asynchronous telehealth diagnosis. This was because the formerly first-ranked diag nosis, mental health conditions, fell even more sharply, from 22.7% to 15%, dropping to second place. Mental-health conditions fell nationally from number three to number five among the top five diagnoses via asynchro nous telehealth. In May, utilization of audio-only telehealth services was higher in rural than urban areas of the Midwest, Northeast and West. Nationally, it was slightly higher in urban areas (5.1% of telehealth claim lines) than rural areas (5.0%). In the South, it was markedly higher in urban areas (10.2%) than rural areas (5.0%).

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