Dive Brief:
- A brief issued by the American Hospital Association concluded that telehealth reduces healthcare costs and coverage should be included into emerging payment models.
- Medicare offers the most limited coverage of telehealth, only paying for selective services in rural areas. Most state Medicaid programs offer some telehealth coverage but it varies from state to state.
- Telehealth has provided significant savings to the Veterans Health Administration, with average savings of $6,500 per patient that participated in the agency's telehealth program in 2012. This equals almost $1 billion in savings associated with the use of telehealth that year.
Dive Insight:
The brief discussed other areas where telehealth has helped reduced healthcare costs. The technology has shown to be effective in treating patients at home through programs like Hospital at Home programs at Johns Hopkins Medical Center.
The cost of at-home care was 32% less than traditional hospital care.
Telehealth helps physicians in EDs treat individuals with mental health issues, assists community hospitals by providing specialty consultations and help reduce admissions from nursing homes.
Recommendations cited by the brief call from more telehealth research using larger sample sizes, diverse geographies, and a wider range of conditions.
The U.S. telehealth market was $572 million in 2014 and projected to reach close to $3 billion by 2022, according to a report by Grand View Research.