Telehealth benefits for employers: What benefits leaders should consider

Healthcare costs continue to put benefits leaders in a difficult position: control spending without making healthcare less affordable or accessible for employees.

The average annual premium for employer-sponsored family health coverage reached $26,993 in 2025, a 6% increase from the previous year, according to KFF’s 2025 Employer Health Benefits Survey. And the pressure is growing.

In its article “Employers expect health benefit costs to jump 8.2% in 2027, and the impact will likely be felt by workers,” Marsh, formally known as Mercer, projects employers' total health benefit cost per employee will increase an average of 8.2% in 2027, even after planned cost-reduction measures. According to the same source, without those measures, employers estimated costs would rise nearly “11%, on average, if they took no action to lower it.”

Simply shifting more costs to employees isn't a sustainable answer.

For benefits leaders, that puts greater focus on strategies that can address access, affordability and employee experience while complementing the organization's existing benefits program.

Virtual healthcare, or telehealth, is one option employers may want to evaluate.

During our The TruePlan Fiduciary Advantage: 2026 Webinar Series, Session Three, virtual healthcare was discussed as a flexible benefits option, including how employers can structure it, the populations it may help serve, and the questions benefits leaders should ask before taking a solution to leadership or their broker.

What does virtual healthcare include today?

Virtual healthcare allows employees to connect remotely with healthcare professionals, often through video, phone, or secure digital communication.

Although telehealth is often associated with general medical needs such as colds or other minor illnesses, today's virtual care landscape offers more comprehensive options that may include:

• general medical and urgent care;

• behavioral and mental health;

• chronic condition support;

• dermatology and other specialty consultations;

• medication management;

• second opinions; and

• care navigation.

For benefits leaders, that breadth is important. The question isn't simply whether to offer telehealth. It's what gaps virtual care can fill within the organization's existing benefits strategy.

Behavioral health provides a useful example. A Health Care Cost Institute analysis, ”Telehealth Access is Crucial to Mental Health Care for People with Employer-Sponsored Insurance,” found that from 2020 through 2022 more than 40% of mental health visits among people with employer-sponsored insurance occurred through telehealth.

Meanwhile, 73% of large employers surveyed in the 2025 EBRI Employer Mental Health Survey included telehealth in their mental health coverage. The survey found that employers identified lack of awareness, stigma, and confidentiality concerns among the challenges affecting engagement with mental health benefits.

Why telehealth is becoming a benefits strategy conversation

As noted above, benefits leaders are trying to reconcile two pressures: rising healthcare costs and barriers to accessing care.

Telehealth doesn't eliminate either challenge. But it can give employers another option for connecting employees with appropriate care.

Traditional healthcare can require employees to navigate appointment availability, work schedules, transportation, and geography. Virtual care removes some of those barriers for services that can appropriately be delivered remotely.

Behavioral health is one area where virtual care has maintained a significant role. Marsh's 2025 article, “Has virtual been a gamechanger for behavioral health?” reported that roughly 30% of behavioral health office visits in its employer-sponsored claims data have consistently occurred virtually in recent years.

That shifts the conversation from "Should we add a telehealth benefit?" to a more useful question: "Where are employees struggling to access care, and could virtual healthcare help fill that gap?"

Virtual care should be considered within a broader strategy around healthcare access and enhancing employee wellness to boost retention and satisfaction.

Look beyond employees enrolled in your medical plan

One of the important opportunities discussed during The TruePlan Fiduciary Advantage: 2026 Webinar Series, Session Three was evaluating virtual care through the lens of workforce eligibility.

Not every employee has equal access to employer-sponsored medical benefits.

In its article focusing on private insurance, “Part-Time Workers Have Less Access to Employer-Based Coverage Than Full-Time Workers,” KFF estimates that 18.5 million nonelderly adults in the U.S. work part time. KFF reports that part-time workers are less likely than full-time workers to be offered health coverage or enrolled in an employer plan.

Depending on an employer's workforce, benefits leaders may consider the needs of:

• part-time employees working under plan eligible hours;

• seasonal, temporary and 1099 adjacent workers; and

• employees in a benefits waiting period.

This creates an important strategic distinction.

Employers can evaluate telehealth as a supplement to existing medical coverage, giving covered employees another potential access point for care.

Or, depending on the particular offering and applicable requirements, they can explore virtual care options designed for employee populations outside the traditional medical plan.

For organizations with diverse eligibility groups, both objectives may be relevant.

How should employers structure a virtual healthcare benefit?

Before evaluating vendors, employers should define what they actually want the benefit to accomplish.

Our webinar highlighted two fundamental decisions:

1. Who should have access?

Start with the workforce rather than the product.

Is the primary goal to:

• give medical plan participants another way to access care?

• address gaps among employees who are not eligible for the traditional medical plan? and/or

• improve access to a particular service?

The answer influences everything that follows.

2. Who pays?

Depending on the benefit, employers may consider several funding approaches:

• Employer-paid: The employer covers the cost for eligible employees.

• Employee-paid: Employees elect and pay for the benefit.

• Cost-shared: The organization subsidizes a portion of the cost.

The decision should be evaluated against budget, employee affordability, the workforce population being served, and the employer's broader benefits objectives.

There isn't necessarily one right structure. The right design is the one that aligns the benefit with a clearly defined workforce need.

Don't build the telehealth business case around savings alone

For benefits and finance leaders, cost will naturally be part of the evaluation.

But telehealth requires a more nuanced business case than comparing the price of a virtual visit with the price of an emergency department or urgent care visit.

Research on the economics of telehealth has produced different findings depending on patient population, type of care, and delivery model. A systematic review of economic evaluations of telehealth in primary care demonstrates why employers should be cautious about assuming that every virtual visit automatically translates into savings.

Instead, benefits leaders can evaluate whether virtual care supports organizational objectives such as:

• improving access to appropriate care;

• addressing specific gaps in the benefits portfolio;

• supporting populations with different eligibility needs;

• improving the employee benefits experience; and

• influencing how employees access appropriate levels of care.

For self-funded organizations, available claims and utilization information may also provide additional insight into how healthcare utilization changes following implementation.

The takeaway for leadership is simple: telehealth should have a defined role in the benefits strategy, not just a projected return on investment.

Consider access across a distributed workforce

For employers operating across multiple states, another consideration is whether the virtual care solution can adequately serve the workforce where employees are located.

According to HHS, healthcare professionals must meet applicable state licensure requirements and generally must be licensed or otherwise legally permitted to practice in the state where the patient is located. Cross-state requirements vary.

That makes questions about provider availability and geographic coverage important during the evaluation process.

Benefits leaders should understand what access looks like across the employee population rather than assuming a virtual solution will operate identically in every location.

Don't underestimate the communication strategy

Communication should be considered part of the benefits design, not something that happens after implementation. Data consistently shows benefits awareness, and participation grows steadily when the rollout includes: clear communication; a simple enrollment process; and reminders timed to moments when people are thinking about their health, such as flu season, open enrollment or new hire onboarding.

Employees should be able to quickly understand:

• what the benefit provides;

• who is eligible;

• what it costs them;

• how they access it;

• what types of care are available; and

• where it fits among their other healthcare options.

For benefits leaders, the lesson is straightforward: adding another benefit is not the same as creating another benefit employees will use.

Five questions benefits leaders should ask before moving forward

The virtual care market can be complicated. Starting with the benefits strategy can help narrow the conversation.

1. Where are our biggest healthcare access gaps?

Consider employee populations, geographic constraints, appointment and care access, and high deductibles.

2. Who are we trying to serve?

Determine whether the priority is medical plan participants, employees outside the traditional plan or a combination of populations.

3. What problem do we expect virtual care to solve?

Define the objective first, whether lowering costs and/or providing alternative care options.

4. How does this fit with the benefits employees already have?

A virtual health solution should fit naturally within an organization's existing benefits strategy. Employees may use it to complement their current medical coverage or to help offset care access challenges when enrolled in a lower-premium, higher-deductible plan, while benefiting from convenient, timely care that can reduce time away from work.

5. How will we know whether it works?

Establish measures that make sense for the organization's objectives. These could include enrollment, utilization and employee feedback and, when appropriate data are available, healthcare utilization trends.

Make telehealth part of the benefits strategy, not another point solution

Virtual healthcare can give employers another lever for addressing a difficult combination of rising healthcare costs, access challenges and varying workforce needs.

But adding telehealth for the sake of having telehealth isn't the goal.

The bigger opportunity is determining where virtual care fits into the overall benefits strategy and what workforce problem it is intended to solve.

That was the focus of the virtual healthcare discussion during our TruePlan Fiduciary Advantage Webinar Session Three. Rather than focusing on a particular vendor, the session explored virtual healthcare as a benefits category, including potential approaches to eligibility and funding, and the practical questions employers should consider before introducing a program.

Build a benefits strategy around your workforce

Telehealth is just one piece of a broader employee benefits strategy. As healthcare costs, employee expectations and workforce needs evolve, employers need to continually assess whether their benefits are delivering the right mix of value, access and support.

TruePlan works with employers to evaluate their benefits strategy, manage renewals and provide tailored recommendations based on their organization's needs. Our team also supports benefits administration, employee communication, education and wellness to help organizations get more from their overall benefits program. Explore TruePlan's benefits management and consulting.