Telehealth and on-site care solve for different things. Telehealth is fundamentally a communication tool: it connects an employee to a licensed clinician over video, which is valuable for triage and behavioral health check-ins, but it cannot capture vitals, perform a physical exam, or use a stethoscope. After surging during the pandemic, telehealth utilization has settled into a narrow band, accounting for roughly 4% to 6% of U.S. outpatient visits.
There's also a connectivity dimension employers frequently overlook: 1 in 5 Americans lack access to viable broadband for telehealth, meaning the populations who most need care are often unreachable by a purely video-based benefit, particularly at rural or semi-rural worksites. See Beyond the Telehealth Kiosk for more on this connectivity gap.
On-site care, as delivered through the OnMed CareStation®, keeps the live-clinician model but adds integrated diagnostic tools and operates on dual broadband and satellite connectivity specifically to reach the populations traditional telehealth cannot. 86% of CareStation visits are resolved on-site without a specialist referral, a rate telehealth alone does not achieve because it structurally cannot examine the patient it's speaking with.
Traditional telehealth, with adoption still at only 4-6% of outpatient visits, cannot capture vitals, perform examinations, or deliver the diagnostic confidence that most clinical decisions require. The OnMed CareStation® combines medical-grade diagnostic instruments with a 55-inch life-size display connecting patients to licensed clinicians in real time. 86% of patients are fully treated inside the CareStation without redirection to a specialist, urgent care, or emergency department. The CareStation also operates on dual broadband and satellite, reaching communities that traditional telehealth cannot serve. Walk-in clinics and telehealth often end in a referral or a second visit, and a telehealth kiosk or virtual health benefit connects a patient to a clinician without integrated diagnostic tools; the CareStation resolves the encounter in one visit. Hybrid care is also not the same as telehealth: it adds in-person assessment capabilities and integrated diagnostic tools to virtual clinical expertise.
Telehealth connects a patient to a clinician without a physical exam, so conditions needing a hands-on assessment often still require a separate in-person follow-up, which is part of why telehealth has stayed at only 4-6% of total outpatient visits nationally despite years of employer availability.
1 in 5 Americans lack access to viable broadband for telehealth, meaning telehealth-only benefits structurally cannot reach a meaningful share of the population, particularly at rural and semi-rural worksites.
Every term here points to the same gap in healthcare access. See how the CareStation closes it.
Talk to Our Team
