Aetna and Cigna have agreed to reimburse dentist and physician members of the International Association of Dental and Medical Disciplines who provide online visits to their patients.
Founded by John J. Ryan, DMD, the International Association of Dental and Medical Disciplines or IADMD is a professional association of dentists and physicians dedicated to patient advocacy and promoting their doctor-led version of universal healthcare.
IADMD says this is a major milestone for its members who already have access to resources such as free doctor Web site and free hosting, online bill pay, prescription refill service, and email services.
"We are not an IT services company; we are a chartered professional society of doctors of all disciplines that gives our members free access to our IT department as a membership benefit. We are doctors working for doctors with insight to the entire claims process from the doctors' perspective and we are operational with private HIPAA secure servers using 128 / 256 bit encryption that allows for private patient portals for virtual visits, and online bill pay, so effectively the virtual visit and co-pay can be one-in-done," said Ryan, a dentist in East Hampstead, New Hampshire, and a Dental Examiner for the North East Regional Board of Dental Examiners.
"These sessions are custom for each doctor member in accordance to their needs. We are working privately with each doctor member and their insurers to ensure reimbursement as agreed. As patient advocacy and privacy concerns are our number one concerns, teams of lawyers have been consulted on what is needed to ensure HIPAA compliancy. With legal direction in the infrastructure, these sessions are not susceptible to tampering or leakage that could affect a patient's employability or insurability as it is not done via email. It uses the 128 / 256 bit encryption that allow for these private patient portals to show up only the doctor's HIPAA secure server, thus, there is no access to the data via the World Wide Web. The only way the visit can be viewed is by the doctor logging onto the HIPAA secured server to which only the doctor has access," added Ryan.
"People can wait a long time to get in to see their primary care doctor and longer for a specialist... to have immediate access is huge," said Melissa Welch, Aetna's Northern California medical director.
Reportedly, many more insurance companies are expected to follow in Cigna and Aetna's footsteps.