This story from Becker’s Health IT newsletter is packed full of meaning for the virtual healthcare sector. Even as the primary care delivery model described in the story would seem to make practical sense (imagine Minute Clinic meets a food truck), the reality of patient engagement patterns for typical non-emergency care snuck-up on this pilot project and (we surmise) decimated its economics. The paradox for primary care innovators might be encompassed in the following Q&A with an imaginary primary care consumer:
Provider: “When do you need primary care?”
Consumer: “When I don’t feel well”
Provider: “And when does that happen?”
Consumer: “Whenever I don’t feel well”.
The DocGo “primary care food truck” is like an airplane needing to fill seats at a certain density and RPU in order to make a profit. But in this use case, there was simply no way to “fill seats” in a predictable way and the unit economics – even at full capacity – were not nearly enough to cover the fixed costs involved.
So what is the takeaway? We actually like the DocGo concept and don’t think it should be abandoned. But the “retail” placement angle probably won’t deliver. Back to the white board!
Or perhaps the Dollar General/DocGo strategy is flawed in a more fundamental way: fully-virtualized care delivery works as a business model since it concentrates care fulfillment while distributing care access. Dollar General/DocGo tried to deploy a model that concentrates BOTH care fulfillment and care access. Read more here.
