A Shift In Telehealth—The ‘Offshoring’ Of Care & New Competition

It seems like ages ago. In 2008, I did a presentation at a non-health care business conference about the likelihood of “health care offshoring”—offshoring being defined as the practice of an organization basing some of its processes or services overseas to take advantage of lower costs. My premise was that the technology existed for health care services to be delivered to consumers in the U.S. by professionals in other countries—even if not yet adopted.

At the time, health care organizations were using out-of-country staffing for administrative functions like claims payment, call centers, and tech . . .