As patient experience becomes the defining strategic priority for healthcare executives, CFOs face growing pressure to justify the financial return on virtual care investments.
A new report from Sage Growth Partners finds that nearly half (49%) of hospital and health system C-suite executives now rank patient experience as their organization’s top strategic initiative, a relatively steep climb from 36% in 2023 and 25% in 2022.
At the same time, 72% of executives say integrating virtual care services is critical to their care-delivery model, and numerous organizations now offer virtual primary care and remote patient monitoring (RPM). Despite the end of pandemic-era telehealth and Hospital-at-Home waivers designed to boost use and Medicare reimbursement, these programs have become vital for patient access.
The juxtaposition is striking. It’s critical for health systems to meet patient expectations around access, ease, and satisfaction, but converting virtual care investments into solid financial returns is a challenge. According to the report, less than 30% of respondents say that they obtain “significant ROI” from most of their virtual care services.
For virtual care to be sustainable, CFOs will need to advocate at the federal level for improved telehealth reimbursement and demonstrate importance of virtual care and RPM for patients and health systems.
For CFOs navigating tight margins and constrained capital in today’s healthcare environment, the report shows a strategic pivot for them in how to budget, evaluate and operationalize virtual care investments.
The CFO Playbook
To make virtual care financially sustainable, CFOs must shift their strategy from experimentation to disciplined investment management. That starts with establishing clear ROI frameworks. CFOs should implement ROI models that tie virtual care directly to measurable financial outcomes, such as avoided readmissions, reduced no-shows, improved clinician efficiency, (how many patients they see in a day) and any increased patient retention or referrals.
As the report highlights, fragmented pilots and disconnected tools are major barriers to ROI. CFOs should require that all virtual care platforms integrate seamlessly with EHR and enterprise workflows, enabling accurate billing, full cost capture, and reduced administrative overhead. Without this, CFOs risk a messy integration that eats into ROI.
The report notes that 78% of organizations expect to invest in new virtual care infrastructure within the next one to three years. CFOs should guide these decisions based on scalability, not novelty, selecting solutions that can expand across service lines while maintaining cost efficiency.
CFOs should also be embedding financial accountability into vendor partnerships. Only 25% of hospital leaders report high trust in vendor-provided ROI claims. CFOs can mitigate risk by incorporating shared-risk or milestone-based ROI clauses in contracts, ensuring vendors are financially accountable for performance outcomes.
Lastly, CFOs must track financial impact on a continuous basis. Build ongoing ROI dashboards that track utilization, clinician time savings, and revenue capture per service line. If a pilot cannot demonstrate scalable cost savings or margin improvement, reallocate capital early. Sustainable ROI requires ongoing financial visibility, not an evaluation that’s an after-thought.
The Industry Trend
The broader industry trend is evident: healthcare systems are moving beyond traditional fee-for-service structures into models where patient experience, convenience, and access become vital. Digital health tools like telehealth and RPM are gaining in popularity because they underscore that shift. Yet adoption and ROI remain inconsistent.
For CFOs, this means recalibrating investment assumptions. Investments in virtual care must be treated as operational transformations, not experimental projects. That requires robust business cases, integration planning, scale considerations, and strong policy advocacy.
Marie DeFreitas is the CFO editor for HealthLeaders.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Nearly half of healthcare executives rank patient experience as their top strategic focus.
Although 70%+ of organizations see virtual care as central to their delivery model, fewer than one-third report meaningful ROI due to fragmented pilots, disconnected systems, and unclear success metrics.
CFOs must adopt disciplined ROI frameworks, prioritize EHR-integrated platforms, and focus on scalable virtual care models that improve margins, reduce cost, and enhance revenue capture.