Best Tips For North America Medical Second Opinion Market

Growing Medical Second Opinion Market

A medical second opinion is a decision-support tool for ratification or modification of a suggested treatment by another physician. A medical second opinion may have a critical influence on the diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis. The patient can benefit from treatment optimization and avoid unnecessary risks. The physician can benefit from less exposure to legal claims, and healthcare organizations can benefit from increased treatment, quality assurance, and cost-saving from unnecessary surgery and treatments. Nevertheless, injudicious use of this tool can provoke unnecessary medical costs. In recent years, many patients prefer to seek a second opinion on their disease and available treatments. Private and public insurance companies are trying to control surgery costs by urging and even demanding a second opinion before surgery.

1. Increasing preference for healthcare cost optimization

Patients across the globe are witnessing growing financial burdens imposed by healthcare services. Increasing healthcare-associated costs due to the overall shortage of healthcare professionals and limited availability of resources are generating the need for healthcare cost optimization worldwide.

Also, the growing emphasis on the reduction of additional costs and increasing awareness about the possible exploitation from healthcare organizations, especially in low- and middle-income countries, significantly drive the second medical opinion market.

Consumers can avail of extensive information from medical second opinions while making the necessary decisions about surgery or the main case.

In addition, medical second opinion providers review the recommendations for surgical procedures based on additional medical diagnosis, analysis of existing medical records, and assessment of other therapeutic solutions as an alternative for surgery.

These aspects of the second opinion can result in a reduction in therapeutic costs.

Further, a second opinion on surgical decisions can also result in a reduction in possible surgical adversities, which can lead to additional healthcare-related costs. For instance, according to a study published by the World Health Organization in 2019, ~25.0% of patients around the world suffer from complications in surgical procedures. Moreover, ~1 million people die during surgery or follow-up of the same each year.

An increasing number of errors in medical billing is also one of the prominent factors responsible for the growth of the market. For instance, according to a study published by the Medical Billing Advocates of America in 2019, an estimated 80.0% of medical bills contain at least one error. Further, problems in medical billing errors cost a total of ~US$ 210 billion each year in the US. These possibilities and occurrences of financial errors are projected to accelerate the growth of the medical second opinion market by 2027.

1. Advancements in technology 

With the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare service providers are launching online platforms for patients to access second opinion services. This is expected to drive market growth over the forecast period. For instance, In August 2020, Motic Digital Pathology launched its telepathology program, which allows pathologists to connect with labs and patients around the world.

The cloud-based platform supports most slide formats on the market, allowing for multi-site management, international pathology, and other collaborative projects.

As the consultant, a specialist can collaborate remotely with referring hospitals using the MoticFlow platform. They can leave annotations on specific parts of the slide, invite experts for a second opinion or forward the case to another consultant.

On August 19, 2020, Cleveland Clinic announced a new multi-faceted collaboration with Aetna, a CVS Health Company, to form an Accountable Care Organization (ACO) model and offer new plans and programs featuring Cleveland Clinic providers. The collaboration includes the launch of a co-branded insurance plan, which could reduce health care costs for participating employers, an expanded relationship nationwide to provide members enrolled in Aetna commercial plans access to second opinions by Cleveland Clinic for certain conditions, and the deployment of Cleveland Clinic’s Cardiac Center of Excellence (COE) program to Aetna plan sponsors.

In August 2020, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) launched an online terminal to ease the burden over doctors’ shoulders working at the premier hospital along with the patients coming from far-off places. The institute has recently incorporated an online video consultation link on its website, through which a patient can directly take medical consultation, especially second opinion and post-surgery pointers & care directions.

DataM Intelligence - The COVID-19 pandemic has driven greater demand for virtual access to leading medical experts. In the last year of the COVID-19 pandemic, more elective procedures were being put on hold. After that, an incredible spike in the second quarter of 2020 as virtual consultations and virtual second opinions became preferred choices as patients can get access to the best medical advice. There is the potential to unlock the clinical expertise and use virtual health and remote monitoring to rethink care and attack the healthcare challenges of the world. With the advancement of technology, most user records are available in a digital format. This makes it convenient to transmit high-quality data to doctors and get an online diagnosis done. Skype too can be used for diagnosis, cutting away the period and making it convenient for patients. With changing lifestyles, the healthcare industry in developing countries, such as India is also encountering paradigm shifts. The accessibility of common people to the best available talent globally along with transparency in clinical management is likely to boost the market growth over the forecast period.