The Cleveland Clinic is teaming up with CVS MinuteClinic to bring customers in Ohio easy access to healthcare experts.
When a patient visits MinuteClinic, if the nurse practitioner there deems it necessary for the patient to have a consultation with a primary care practitioner at Cleveland Clinic, that arrangement can be set up within about 5 to 10 minutes, according to a Fast Company report. The health system also is working to allow for 24/7 access.
The MinuteClinic virtual visits will cost about $50 in addition to the cost of seeing the nurse practitioner.
There are more than 1,000 CVS locations that offer telemedicine services through the MinuteClinic, including in Texas and California. However, for those consultations patients are seen by other available MinuteClinic providers.
American Well will support the Cleveland Clinic effort by providing CVS with the tools for the consultations; it's the first time the telehealth vendor has worked with a big academic medical center in such an effort, Fast Company reports.
CVS Health last August announced that it would partner with three telehealth companies--American Well, Doctor on Demand and Teladoc--as part of an expansion of its direct-to-consumer telehealth strategy.
Andrew Sussman, executive vice president and associate chief medical officer of CVS Health, as well as president of MinuteClinic, told FierceHealthIT at that time that with the partnerships, CVS intended to explore how direct-to-consumer telehealth providers, retail pharmacy and retail clinic providers can collaborate to improve access to patient care with the current access challenges.
To learn more:
- here's the Fast Company report