Telemedicine Is Vital to Reforming Health Care Delivery

October 07 01:00 2015 by ushadmin

Health care remains one of the few services that require people to have a face-to-face interaction to obtain access. But more and more consumers are questioning that reality, and change is on the way. In January 2015, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a new provider reimbursement code for non–face-to-face health care services for patients who have chronic medical conditions. A new CMS code may seem like a tiny matter, but this one emblemizes a larger shift toward delivering health services independently of time and place, enabled by technologies such as smartphones, sensors, and wireless health-monitoring devices — what we in the field call telemedicine.

The concept of telemedicine is not new (its roots go back to the late 1950s). In the 21st century, the widely held goal of improving health care outcomes while lowering costs is accelerating the shift from a one-to-one to a one-to-many model of care delivery, which telemedicine makes possible. Understanding telemedicine has now become crucial for decision makers in the health care industry, and I aim to help in that effort. Let me start by exploring some industry fundamentals.

The rising prevalence of chronic illnesses in an aging population puts pressure on the supply side of health care. Clinicians are not being trained fast enough to keep pace with the rate of service demand. In addition, given the rising cost of care, new models for reimbursing hospitals and other providers have begun to emphasize quality and efficiency rather than units of delivered services. And consumers are increasingly shopping on open markets for health insurance policies that require significant deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses. These trends underpin the need for a one-to-many model of care delivery that offers flexibility and transparency…