How JOY Drives Telemedicine Utilization

Our namesake, JOY, is a little chatbot with a big job. She’s at the center of our app experience welcoming our members, gathering information, and guiding members through their healthcare navigation journey. She’s also responsible for helping us drive members toward better healthcare decisions.

Take telemedicine, for example. Though it has gained attention over the last few years, this benefit is still climbing out of a deep hole of low awareness and utilization.

With JOY's help, employees can see how telemedicine fits into their life. She gives you back valuable time while working hard to educate and engage employees. Here, we’ll tell you how JOY can drive telemedicine utilization in new ways.

She educates

JOY is the first face employees see when they open our app, but their interaction with her doesn’t stop there. JOY uses proactive outreach to remind employees about all their benefits, including telemedicine, so that they can make smarter healthcare choices. In addition to hosting our chat function, JOY educates with a series of messages we call “campaign journeys.”

Journeys educate members and prompt action. They cover specific, timely topics, like breast health in October. Journeys also help members learn more about specific benefits, such as employee assistance programs (EAP). Other JOY journeys are core functions of the app, designed to deliver provider recommendations, begin a bill review, or uncover prescription savings. Telemedicine is just one of the topics JOY regularly tackles in her journeys.

She engages to prompt action

The goal of JOY’s campaign journeys isn’t just to educate. It’s to engage employees with all your healthcare benefits, including telemedicine. JOY regularly invites employees to try new services, both in the chat feature and in her campaign journeys. These personalized invitations help employees understand exactly how telemedicine works.

Unlike benefits booklets and benefits presentations, JOY’s messages are short, sweet, and available right on a mobile device. They’re just a few taps from the benefits wallet, meaning that engaging with JOY can drive utilization of your other benefits. Your EAP, HSA, or even dental benefits? They get a boost from JOY’s engagement, too.

Here’s how it works: A telemedicine journey might introduce members to the benefit and describe it in a few short messages. The exchange always ends with JOY asking whether the member wants to speak with an online medical professional.

That way, they can quickly navigate straight to telemedicine without even leaving the app. It’s a seamless experience that reinforces how convenient telemedicine can be.

She redirects care

JOY also functions as one of our best tools for care redirection, helping us tackle the problem of lack of awareness head-on. By presenting all the available options, JOY can help your employees avoid costly alternatives like the emergency room.

When employees seek care, JOY can ask them whether they’d prefer to speak with a medical provider right away. It cuts out any middle man, any digging for numbers, and any confusion. Of course, we know that JOY isn’t always the best resource for employee questions, so we make it easy for them to reach our highly-educated team of healthcare concierges.

The concierge team provides help with more complicated tasks like provider search and bill review, or even answering general benefits questions. Just like JOY, though, our concierge team is trained to redirect to virtual care. They’re already experts in your employee benefits packages, so they can easily highlight other options like on-site clinics or preferred providers.

JOY makes higher telemedicine utilization a reality

With JOY by your side, driving telemedicine utilization is simple. A connected healthcare navigation platform like HealthJoy makes it possible to encourage smart healthcare choices like virtual care. When everything comes together in a single mobile application, employees find it easier to navigate, and love, all the benefits you already provide.