Coordinating telehealth platform with revenue-sharing contracts under different reimbursement mechanisms

The increasing prevalence of chronic diseases necessitates efficient and accessible healthcare delivery models, making telehealth platforms a promising solution. Telehealth has significantly improved chronic patients’ health by providing convenient, accessible, and personalized care, ultimately reducing hospital readmissions and improving patient outcomes. This research investigates the strategic collaboration between a physical hospital and an internet enterprise in developing a telehealth platform for chronic disease patients’ follow-up visits. We examine how government reimbursement policies and revenue-sharing contracts affect this collaborative model’s optimal pricing and performance. Using a four-stage sequential game theory model, we analyze two specific revenue-sharing contracts: capacity-based and volume-based. The study considers both homogeneous and differentiated reimbursement mechanisms, examining their influence on hospital profits, social welfare, and patient choice. Our findings demonstrate that volume-based contracts facilitate mutually beneficial collaborations, while capacity-based contracts favor hospital profitability. Homogeneous reimbursement has a limited feasible range and results in lower hospital profits and moderate social welfare. Differentiated reimbursement, coupled with the volume-based contract, maximizes social welfare by providing increased reimbursement for online patients and mitigating perceived value differences. This highlights the need for governments to prioritize differentiated reimbursement and volume-based contracts for robust and socially beneficial telehealth platforms. However, enhancing patient trust in the telehealth platform’s medical quality remains crucial for healthcare supply chain development under homogeneous reimbursement.