The Expert Podcast

It's an interesting couple of developments in the virtual industry profession where telemedicine or Telehealth is maybe a canary in the coal mine for some other businesses. Back in 2019 and 2020, there were several telemedicine companies that took off that were really big with growth. A lot of it had to do with the pandemic and lockdowns and providing these services without direct human interaction. There was a plethora of companies that did this. Cerebral was a big company that came up with a billion dollar valuation. Amazon even had their own telemedicine division.

Well, some of these are now starting to deteriorate. Amazon is cutting jobs because they shut down their Telehealth service. This company Cerebral is laying off 20 percent of its staff for what they call operational efficiencies. Now, there may be more to it than just these stories. Each one of these has its own reasoning behind it. Amazon maybe wasn't committed to that space, and Cerebral had some issues with the way that they did prescriptions — maybe didn't meet the guidelines for the FDA, according to the article.

But it does show that there was a big increase in the adoption of virtual services. Everything from vehicles, you know Carvana and Vroom, to telemedicine companies got a big boost from lockdowns and people staying home. Well, now that the lockdowns in the pandemic are essentially over, a lot of these companies now have overstayed their welcome and they're starting to have to shrink down their footprint. The question is: will virtual services be the norm, or was it just a flash in the pan? Was it a fad that now people want to see each other in person?

I suspect that the virtual delivery of goods and services like Telehealth and telemedicine in the long run will become popular again. But now, for the next year or two, people are going to have this need and want to see people in person. Look, we're a social species. We want to see people. There is a convenience factor of delivering it remotely — that's why we use DoorDash and the other delivery services for groceries. But when it comes to a service where a direct conversation with a person is important, like telemedicine, sometimes people want to do that in person, not over a computer screen.

When you're ordering groceries, you don't really need to talk to a person. When you're talking about your health situation and getting diagnosis, you may want to see somebody in person or they may need to see you just to diagnose physical conditions. Tell us what your thoughts are in the comments about the future of virtual services being provided and what you think the future of these types of industries will be down the road.