Where early identification becomes a strategic advantage
It’s difficult to manage what can’t be seen. Preventive care brings risk to the surface, but traditional healthcare is often missing people because of common barriers like a lack of time, poor access and costs.
VirtualCheckup helps people overcome these barriers. In 2025, 46% of first-time VirtualCheckup patients were newly assessed with one or more cardiometabolic health risks, including diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipidemia, and nearly half were newly assessed with a mental health concern. In traditional primary care settings, annual visits don’t often include comprehensive mental health screenings due to time constraints and competing clinical needs.
For plan sponsors asking how to identify health risk earlier, the takeaway is simple: remove friction and meet people where they are. At scale, early identification requires an approach that reaches people who don’t routinely engage—not just those already inside the healthcare system.
From identification to activation: getting people into care
Identification alone won’t bend the cost or outcomes curve. What matters is what happens after risk is identified.
VirtualCheckup and its combination of convenient diagnostics and live nurse practitioner visits create a moment of trust and clarity. For people with newly identified health risks, or other care opportunities, that means enrollment into Teladoc Health programs. Early pilots show real-time enrollment drives up to two times higher enrollment in diabetes or obesity care programs compared to traditional outreach alone.
For plan sponsors, that distinction—activation versus awareness—is critical. It’s not enough to offer best-in-class benefits programs. If people aren’t beginning down a pathway to better health, those investments never realize their full value. Activation is the difference between knowing risk exists and knowing it’s being addressed.
How ongoing engagement improves health outcomes
The strongest proof of an effective preventive care strategy is sustaining improvement over time. Among patients who have completed multiple VirtualCheckups over consecutive years, results improved across conditions and care needs.
Across tens of thousands of patients, VirtualCheckup helped improve recommended cancer screening adherence, and more than half of patients with unmanaged hypertension improved to managed blood pressure levels within one year. Two in five patients with prediabetes improved to normal blood sugar levels—an especially meaningful result given that 70% of people with prediabetes will develop diabetes in their lifetime without intervention.
These improvements go beyond awareness. They illustrate the power of pairing early identification with real-time clinical activation and ongoing support. When patients gain clarity and are connected to the right care pathway without friction, real change happens. At scale, this approach delivers clinically significant results across diverse populations.
What our preventive care approach means for plan sponsors
- Find hidden risks earlier: VirtualCheckup uncovers cardiometabolic and behavioral health risks, so issues can be addressed before they escalate.
- Convert insight into action: Real-time nurse practitioner-led activation moves patients into the right care pathway the same day.
- Improved outcomes, not just enrollment: Multi-year results show improvements in blood pressure, blood sugar control and weight alongside better cancer screening adherence.
A smarter preventive care strategy, beyond point solutions
The lesson from our first year as part of Teladoc Health: The future of workforce health strategy isn’t about layering more point solutions. It’s about identifying risk earlier, activating patients effectively and orchestrating care so follow-through becomes inevitable rather than optional.
Improving outcomes at scale requires aligning identification and activation into a single connected strategy, not a collection of disconnected steps. VirtualCheckup and Teladoc Health bring that strategy to life.
