Telemedicine is expanding at an unprecedented rate, and is expected to be a $3.5bn market by 2020, but can it sustain that growth in the face of multifarious challenges? On the whole, US insurance companies have been slow to pay for telemedicine, and public payer, Medicare, only funds telemedicine in rural or medically underserved areas. One common criticism holds that, if telemedicine really made healthcare more efficient, and thus saved money, then why have insurers not been quicker in paying for it? Looking at the data, Dr. Sarah Turk of Harvard University commented “You do the telemedicine, it leads to more tests. It leads to more follow-up visits. And over time, when you look at the data, it turns out that telemedicine overall is not necessarily a big cost saver.”
Telemedicine is expanding at an unprecedented rate, and is expected to be a $3.5bn market by 2020, but can it sustain that growth in the face of multifarious challenges? On the whole, US insurance companies have been slow to pay for telemedicine, and public payer, Medicare, only funds telemedicine in rural or medically underserved areas. One common criticism holds that, if telemedicine really made healthcare more efficient, and thus saved money, then why have insurers not been quicker in paying for it? Looking at the data, Dr. Ashish Jha of Harvard University commented “You do the telemedicine, it leads to more tests. It leads to more follow-up visits. And over time, when you look at the data, it turns out that telemedicine overall is not necessarily a big cost saver.”