Debate: How and when will the telemedicine surge reach mental healthcare?

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Covid-19 Pan­dem­ic Dri­ves Patients—and Deal Makers—to Telemed­i­cine (The Wall Street Journal):

The coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic has put the once-niche cat­e­go­ry of telemed­i­cine in the spot­light and is now dri­ving a flur­ry of deal activ­i­ty involv­ing vir­tu­al health-care providers … Patients have embraced vir­tu­al care as a way to stay in touch with doc­tors for urgent care or chron­ic care man­age­ment with­out risk­ing expo­sure to the coro­n­avirus by vis­it­ing med­ical offices. Telemed­i­cine vis­its are typ­i­cal­ly con­duct­ed between a doc­tor and patient using video­con­fer­enc­ing or a phone call and are used to address minor ail­ments like colds as well as man­age­ment of chron­ic con­di­tions like diabetes.

Some 28% of con­sumers sur­veyed in April were using vir­tu­al med­ical vis­its in the ear­ly months of the year, up from 15% in 2019, accord­ing to Deloitte Con­sult­ing LLP.

Mean­while, Talk­space, the text-based men­tal health appli­ca­tion tout­ed by swim­mer Michael Phelps, has had pre­lim­i­nary talks with some larg­er tele­health com­pa­nies about a poten­tial sale, peo­ple famil­iar with the mat­ter said.

“We have been approached mul­ti­ple times in the past about a sale, but we have not pur­sued it,” said Oren Frank, its co-founder and chief executive.

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