Author: Betsie Sassen
We have seen the detrimental effects to businesses and employees that were not able to pivot/adapt to virtual delivery of services such as restaurants, health clubs, spas, the travel industry, and more. Many have and will simply go out of business and those that survive will find that their business will return very slowly. As far as healthcare goes, what we saw with our clients is that while volume dipped initially with COVID-19, overall volumes did return with a robust backlog of elective procedures and doctor’s visits that were “put off”. Our clients had to develop safe ways to take care of their patients and maintain services because they simply had no other choice. Our clients also got creative with “virtual visits” and “virtual group therapies” wherever they could. In some cases, the volume was never lost because patients that are on hemodialysis or in active cancer treatment such as radiation and chemotherapy simply cannot put that off or do that virtually. What we also saw, unfortunately, were patients who should have gone into their doctors or the Emergency Room, but simply did not because they were too scared. The non-COVID-19 that our clients are seeing now are much sicker because they missed appointments and care they should not have.