Telehealth has become one of the biggest beneficiaries of the COVID-19 story.
All as health officials and governments strongly urge folks to limit face to face contact. As a result, stocks like Teladoc Health (TDOC) have raced from a 2020 low of $81.95 to $177.
From here, it could run even higher as patients flock to virtual care.
“In the first quarter of 2020 alone Teladoc Health delivered two million medical visits to people around the world, while simultaneously expanding access to millions of new members,” said Jason Gorevic, chief executive officer. “As our clients and consumers have turned to us during these unprecedented times, our proven ability to meet their needs has elevated our global leadership role and accelerated our impact on the healthcare system overall.”
Better, telehealth may be here to stay for quite some time.
Telehealth Could Become a $175 Billion Industry by 2026
In fact, it’s becoming so popular Global Market Insights estimates the market could be worth $175 billion by 2026.
“Maintaining social distancing and self-quarantine are of key importance in containing the spread of coronavirus. This has led to few countries taking stringent measures such as partial or complete lockdown. Which supports increasing adoption of telemedicine services to avail healthcare services.”
In addition, analysts at Forrester say virtual care visits could soar to one billion this year.
This comes just weeks after President Trump’s telehealth announcement.
“My emergency declaration allowed us to waive regulations to give nurses and doctors maximum flexibility to respond to the virus and to protect our frontline professionals that we’ve authorized through telehealth nationwide, which is really becoming big stuff — telehealth. It makes it a lot easier for patients, and it really has been working out amazingly well,” said President Trump, as quoted by the White House.
Some of the top stocks to watch as telehealth picks up momentum include Teladoc Health (TDOC), Walgreens (WBA), and CVS Health (CVS).
