ProHEALTH Care CEO Dr. Zeyad Baker joins Yahoo Finance’s On The Move to discuss how the coronavirus outbreak is impacting the rise in telemedicine.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: And we're joined now by Zeyad Baker, Dr. Zeyad Baker, who's the CEO of ProHEALTH Care, which does telemedicine. So Dr. Baker, you're joining us from Long Island. Thank you so much for being here with us. Talk to us about how you are seeing this crisis play out for you, what kind of resources that you have that you're-- that you're throwing at it as well.

ZEYAD BAKER: Sure, yeah. So first and foremost, representing ProHEALTH, we have-- between ProHEALTH and our organization in New Jersey, Riverside Medical Group, we have over a thousand doctors and clinicians in 300 locations.

So to the audience that's in the New York-New Jersey area that we serve and beyond, of course, I want first and foremost to wish everybody the greatest safety at this time. Thanks for having me. The resources we are throwing out is kind of everything and the kitchen sink, and, frankly, we're innovating and developing new resources along the way.

So first and foremost, in terms of testing-- which, as you know, all you have to do is turn on the TV-- the biggest problem we have right now is being able to simply test people to identify who goes where to get what and triage. ProHEALTH has done more testing in the state of New York than any other health care organization in the past month for COVID-19. That's thanks to the preparedness of our leadership team.

As you know, as of this moment right, now 40% of COVID cases in the United States are in New York, where we serve patients. And so our ability to be ahead of the curve in testing, which our great team has been able to do, has enabled us to then triage patients. And frankly, you see that the hospitals are stretched, so you talk about resources.

Even the resources we don't control-- you hear about ventilator shortages, ICU bed shortages. Well, sometimes, if a patient can't get testing in an ambulatory setting-- like one of or 30 urgent cares, for instance, all do testing-- then they're forced to go to the ER and further strain a hospital that can better use those resources for patients that need it.

So we feel we're playing a critical role for the community, that we could go into the community and meet them there to see who needs to be tested, and once they are tested, positive or negative, direct them and prevent strain on some of the other resources because, as you know, we're getting close to going off a cliff in terms of ICU beds and ventilators.

In terms of telehealth, we've launched telehealth this week in New Jersey and New York for the over 1 million patients the two organizations share. We're expecting that by next week we're going to be doing over 500 telehealth visits a day. And that's just think-- you know, even in a time of crisis, if you have a newborn who has conjunctivitis-- pink-eye-- or has a cough, you can't wait. It might not be emergent, but if it's your family member, it never really can wait. Telehealth is a good [INAUDIBLE] in that regard.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Dr. Baker, it's Anjalee. Nice to--

JULIE HYMAN: I want to bring on Anjalee Khemlani. Oh, there she is. Anjalee, go ahead.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Thanks, Julie. Sorry to jump in. Dr. Baker, good seeing you again. On this telehealth front, I know that there's been a lot of issues with rolling that out, and there have been logjams that have been reported. So I know that you're serving a pretty large population and a pretty dense area. What is it that you've seen so far, and are you ready for that system to be stressed as more people look and turn to telehealth as they're being told to stay away from these facilities?

ZEYAD BAKER: That's a brilliant question. So much in the way that we were able to get ahead of the curve in ordering tests and making sure we use the right criteria weeks ago so that at this point we're in the right position to continue to be able to test, in terms of a stressed labor force in the ambulatory setting and resources, the key has been redeployment.

So our friends at hospital systems, large hospital systems, which in New York there's no shortage of, are doing the best they can. But what we can do that other organizations can't is pivot. So if you're a large hospital system and you have a bunch of ERs and ORs, it's difficult to transpose them into something else.

What we've been able to do-- if you look in New York and New Jersey with over a thousand clinicians, we've been able to take our anesthesiologists, for instance, because as you know, elective surgeries are no longer happening. So we have capacity on the anesthesiologists. And they're helping us in the urgent care now, where urgent care, we're seeing a three times increase in visits, and therefore we're seeing a lot of our doctors get sick and have to go home. But we've developed a bench of doctors that otherwise wouldn't be doing what they're typically doing.

And so we've been able to redeploy staff, nurses, and doctors. Actually, we have a 90-day game plan in place where we think we can meet the increasing demand by preserving and maintaining a healthy labor force by doing it in a rational and thoughtful manner in response to the crescendo of cases. So great-- great question about meeting a-- you know, a stressed environment, but we think redeployment has been the key thus far. And we're doubling down on it.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: What about actually in your practices? Because very familiar with Riverside and the population you serve there. Have you seen cancellations? I know that a lot of especially physician groups have been seeing that. What are you doing to mitigate that impact on your business?

ZEYAD BAKER: To be totally honest with you, you know, the business and the way I used to think of my business just a couple of months ago is no longer how I think of it. We had a meeting this morning on the phone. We had over 400 of our doctors in leadership positions, so chiefs, chairs of departments, senior doctors who are responsible for our clinical staff. We had a conference call this morning where what I said to them in very clear language was, the only business we're in as of today is the business of helping people. Nothing else matters.

We're just-- we realize that at this point in time, we really can't think, well, what if the patient gets [INAUDIBLE] and we didn't do the right-- drop the right bill? Or as we're doing makeshift billing processes in a revenue cycle which is now working from home, let's say, what if we're not able to bill for that visit? That's a distant second. We are seeing as many patients as we can that need to be seen because that's what the community needs from us right now. And given that we're uniquely positioned, we're not worried about cancellations.

The other thing I would just say to you is, while there are cancellations for well visits, let's say, right? Elective well visits, annual checks, there's a lot of backfilling in terms of people who had a cough that typically they wouldn't come in for. But because of the heightened paranoia, they're coming in with every cough, any runny nose. So it's kind of-- it's kind of leveling out-- again, more urgent care-type visits, less of the elective visits. It's on me to redeploy the resources to meet the need.

JULIE HYMAN: Dr. Zeyad Baker, thank you so much for joining us, talking to us about what you're doing at ProHEALTH Care. You're the CEO, and we appreciate your time.