When the pandemic hit, millions of people were forced to stay home and adjust how they did everything, from everyday shopping to school and healthcare. As a result, telehealth entered the public consciousness and immediately showcased significant benefits. People who may have never used telemedicine before were jumping online for the first time to meet with doctors virtually, have urgent care visits, or get refills of their medications.
The use of telehealth services surged during the pandemic. However, room remains for innovation, advancements, and expansion in the telehealth space. AKOS entered the industry offering a first-of-its-kind virtual primary care platform that elevates telehealth to makes it a more accessible and affordable option for patients.
Telemedicine Evolved
AKOS was founded in 2016 by Dr. Kishlay Anand and Dr. Swaraj Singh. The co-founders saw the need for expanded telehealth care as well as one in the market for affordable care access for self-insured employers. “The self-insured population is the majority of employers. They are putting up the funds to help employees with medical needs. The cost is going crazy high,” explains Dr. Singh.
Drs. Anand and Singh saw where a service such as AKOS could help the inherent inflation in the medical system. Their idea was to stop the waste in the healthcare industry that occurs in situations where people cannot get in to see their Primary Care Physician (PCP) and utilize emergency rooms for non-emergency care instead. A trickle-down effect of the lack of primary care access is the issue of procedures and care that may not have been necessary, had the patient had access to a PCP instead of relying on emergency care services.
AKOS wants to be the primary care provider for their patients. Instead of episodic treatment, which is the calling card of most telehealth services, AKOS is in it for the long haul. They set each patient up with a PCP following a review by a team of health navigators, who evaluate and triage each patient to get them to the most appropriate PCP for their needs. The managed care aspect and holistic approach of AKOS are what sets them apart from other telehealth services.
“Care monitors are checking in, measuring compliance and medications,” says Dr. Singh. “The ultimate goal is to keep people out of the emergency room, especially with an older population. They may get nervous when someone is ill and call 911, but so many cases don’t necessarily need to be in the ER. The patients don’t want it, the hospitals don’t want it, and the insurance companies certainly don’t want it.”
Getting Employees Well and Back to Work
AKOS is also a pioneer in the worker’s compensation space — an area that can be very inflationary with work-related injuries leading to tests, followups, and loss of productivity. This can all be very expensive for employers, and the AKOS model seeks to help manage costs for employers and bring superior care to employees injured on the job.
AKOS even takes its worker’s compensation platform a step further, offering employers data analytics and risk assessment. Their EMR (electronic medical record) approach is unique in that it helps employers evaluate the overall health of their workforce, and pinpoint who is at risk of costing the company the bulk of their worker’s compensation dollars. AKOS also uses EMR data to best assign PCPs and care navigators based on need, and their team of care navigators and PCPs offers 24/7 availability.
“We become their full concierge health care provider,” says Dr. Singh. “We are collecting data, plugging in analytics, and providing high-resolution utilization reports to the employer. They get to see the good stuff.”
Managed Care and Beyond
In early 2022, AKOS ventured into the Managed Care/CMS space for patients 65 and above. This service extends value-based care and provides chronic care management & remote patient monitoring services for such medical concerns as high blood pressure, blood sugar, or heart-related problems. The chronic-care programs AKOS offers seek to keep at-risk patients out of complex healthcare settings and away from long-term health complications such as strokes or heart attacks.
The future of virtual health can be seen in the AKOS approach. The company is pioneering a value-based and patient-centered approach that can lessen the burden on emergency rooms and improve overall health outcomes. After a big leap forward in acceptance during the pandemic, the market is slowly catching up to the big picture that AKOS is presenting.
“As the population ages, I think we will see [telehealth] become more accepted,” says Dr. Singh. “The next generation of adults is used to doing everything virtually.”
AKOS is moving telemedicine away from the “one sickness, one solution” model to a holistic approach that stands to disrupt digital healthcare as a whole. While many telehealth companies recognize the value of a primary care approach, AKOS is truly a disruptive influence in the market.
