At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, people often relied on telemedicine for doctor visits. Now insurers are betting that some patients liked it enough to embrace new types of health coverage that encourage video visits—or that outright insist on them. Priority Health in Michigan, for example, offers coverage requiring online visits first for nonemergency primary care. Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, selling to employers in Connecticut, Maine, and New Hampshire, has a similar plan. “I would describe them as virtual-first, a true telehealth primary care physician replacement product,” said Carrie Kincaid, vice president of individual markets at Priority Health, which launched its plans in January as an addition to more traditional Affordable Care Act (ACA) offerings. The often lower-premium offerings capitalize on the new familiarity and convenience of online routine care. But skeptics see a downside: the risk of overlooking something important. “There’s a gestalt of seeing a patient and …