A recurring scene plays out in healthcare leadership meetings across the country where technology teams present glowing reports of their telehealth system’s success, citing the intensive, hands-on support provided to clinicians and patients as a key achievement. This narrative of “white-glove” service, however, often obscures a far more troubling reality. For many organizations, this celebrated support is not a value-added feature but a costly, resource-draining workaround for a technology that is fundamentally failing to meet the demands of modern clinical care. The very necessity of such constant intervention signals a deep-seated problem that financial and operational leaders can no longer afford to ignore: the staggering hidden cost of propping up bad telehealth.
When “Excellent Support” Is a Red Flag for Failure
The story is a familiar one. A healthcare organization rolls out a new virtual care platform and, in a subsequent telehealth forum, proudly highlights its extensive support model. Teams of dedicated staff are on standby to guide clinicians through confusing interfaces, and patient navigators spend hours on the phone, walking users through complex login procedures and troubleshooting dropped connections. This is often framed as a commitment to user success and a testament to the organization’s dedication.
However, a more critical perspective suggests an uncomfortable question: What if this celebrated support infrastructure is not a sign of success, but a clear symptom of a deeply flawed technology? When a system requires constant human intervention to function, it indicates a fundamental misalignment between the tool and the workflow it is supposed to streamline. Rather than being an indicator of excellent service, the need for “at-the-elbow” assistance reveals a product that is not intuitive, reliable, or fit for its intended purpose, forcing the organization to compensate for its deficiencies with expensive human capital.
The Post-Pandemic Scramble and the Lure of “Good Enough”
The rapid, unprecedented expansion of telehealth during the global pandemic forced many healthcare systems to make technology decisions under immense pressure. In the race to provide virtual access, organizations scrambled to adopt solutions, often with little time for rigorous evaluation. This environment created a powerful temptation to opt for telehealth modules that were “included” or offered at a low cost within existing Electronic Health Record (EHR) or enterprise communication systems. The appeal was undeniable: a quick, seemingly budget-friendly way to check the virtual care box.
This approach, however, planted the seeds for future operational and financial strain. Many of these bundled tools were not comprehensive virtual care platforms but rather simple video features retrofitted for a clinical context. They lacked the sophisticated workflow integrations, user-centric design, and reliability necessary for seamless healthcare delivery. This created a “brittle system”—one that works only under perfect conditions but fractures under the pressure of real-world variables like fluctuating internet connections, diverse patient tech literacy, and complex clinical documentation needs.
The Hidden Ledger: Unpacking the True Cost of Bad Tech
The true expense of a subpar telehealth system extends far beyond its initial sticker price. Organizations that celebrate their intensive support models are often masking a significant operational burden. This “white-glove” fallacy frames constant human assistance not as a feature but as a costly crutch for poor usability. When clinicians need a dedicated support person to navigate their virtual appointments, it signals that the technology is an obstacle to care, not an enabler. This normalization of workarounds embeds inefficiency directly into standard operating procedures, transforming a temporary fix into a permanent, resource-intensive part of the workflow.
This operational drag carries a heavy financial toll. The tangible costs mount quickly in the form of salaries for dedicated support teams, budgets for extensive and recurring training programs, and the immense loss of productivity as clinical staff spend valuable time troubleshooting technology instead of treating patients. These ongoing operational expenses can easily eclipse the initial cost of a purpose-built, intuitive platform, turning a “free” or low-cost module into one of the most expensive systems in the technology stack. The financial drain is not a one-time investment but a continuous leak of resources.
Beyond the balance sheet, the most critical cost may be the erosion of trust. For patients, a frustrating and unreliable telehealth experience is not just an inconvenience; it is a barrier to care that can deter them from seeking virtual services in the future. This attrition directly undermines the strategic goals of improving healthcare access and fostering long-term virtual care adoption. A system that alienates its users ultimately fails its primary mission, regardless of how much support is thrown at it. Every dropped call, confusing interface, and failed login chips away at the patient-provider relationship and the credibility of the virtual care program as a whole.
Voices from the Field: Blaming the Modality Not the Tool
The ultimate metric for any technology’s success is its adoption, and people will not consistently use a tool that is difficult or frustrating. This simple truth lies at the heart of the telehealth challenge. When providers and patients encounter persistent friction—be it a clunky interface, poor video quality, or an unintuitive workflow—their frustration gradually evolves into avoidance. The initial enthusiasm for virtual care gives way to skepticism and a preference for traditional in-person visits, not because the modality is flawed, but because the tool is.
This leads to a dangerous misattribution of blame. A provider who spends ten minutes of a twenty-minute visit troubleshooting a connection is unlikely to blame the specific software vendor; they are more likely to conclude that “telehealth is inefficient.” Similarly, a patient who gives up after multiple failed attempts to log in will tell their friends that “virtual visits don’t work.” This phenomenon was perfectly illustrated at the aforementioned telehealth forum, where a provider’s praise for their support team inadvertently served as a detailed indictment of their technology’s fundamental failures.
This negative perception inflicts collateral damage on the entire digital health industry. It reinforces outdated skepticism among healthcare leaders and policymakers, slowing progress toward making virtual care a seamless and standard component of the healthcare ecosystem. Each bad experience caused by a poorly designed tool validates the arguments of telehealth’s critics and undermines the efforts of those working to build a more accessible and efficient future for healthcare. The problem is not the promise of telehealth; it is the failed implementation driven by poor technology choices.
A Call for a Cure: Not Just Symptom Management
To secure a sustainable future for virtual care, healthcare leaders must shift their strategy from managing the symptoms of bad technology to curing the underlying disease. This requires a fundamental re-evaluation of how telehealth platforms are procured and valued. Instead of asking how to better support a difficult system, the question must become: Why was a system that requires this level of support chosen in the first place? It is both operationally and financially irresponsible to continue staffing around bad technology when the solution is to replace it with a tool that is truly fit for purpose.
This strategic shift can be guided by a new, more comprehensive framework for defining value in telehealth procurement. The first step is to expand the definition of “cost” beyond the license fee. A total cost of ownership analysis must include projected expenses for support staff, hours lost to training and troubleshooting, and potential revenue loss from patient disengagement and provider burnout. Secondly, organizations must prioritize clinical workflow alignment, demanding technology that is purpose-built for healthcare, not a generic communication tool retrofitted for clinical use. The final, and perhaps most important, step is to treat support as an exception, not the rule. The goal should be to acquire a system so intuitive and reliable that support is only needed for rare anomalies, not as a prerequisite for daily operation.
Such a disciplined approach represented a commitment to building a virtual care program on a foundation of quality, not on a patchwork of temporary fixes. The era of accepting “good enough” technology had passed. By investing in tools that empowered clinicians and engaged patients without the need for constant intervention, healthcare organizations finally began to unlock the true potential of telehealth, moving from a model of costly compensation to one of genuine transformation. This deliberate choice to prioritize usability and reliability was what ultimately made virtual care a sustainable, effective, and integral part of healthcare delivery.
