Status of Telemedicine with Medicare
With most insurance companies covering or planning to cover it, many seniors are wondering about the status of telemedicine with Medicare coverage. Medi-Cal covers certain types of telehealth services, so what’s the hold-up? TTC has been providing telehealth services for a few years, and both patients and providers enjoy using the CTN Connect application.
It’s still pretty difficult to tell. At recent telehealth industry gatherings, Medicare representatives stated that telemedicine is being reviewed and didn’t give any concrete road maps. An article on the Kaiser Health News website suggests that Congress is the road block, cautioning that the availability of telemedicine may increase overall costs to Medicare. Of course, both could be true due to the analysis and hoops that will need to be traversed in order to add the available services to coverage.
The data is out there, though, and telemedicine either cuts costs or keeps them level in most cases. Even if there is no savings, the convenience and potential to reduce hospital visits and admissions is enough to prove the worth of telemedicine.