The future of healthcare may very well lie in telemedicine, though it remains to be seen if providers and payers can agree on how such care is compensated.
That’s the message taken away from the American Telemedicine Association’s 15th Annual International Meeting and Exposition, held last month in San Antonio, Texas. The event drew more than 3,000 attendees, featured a show floor of close to 200 exhibitors, and drew hearty support from the federal government through a keynote presentation by Aneesh Chopra, the White House’s chief technology officer.
“Washington does not have a monopoly on great ideas,” Chopra said, in calling on attendees to embrace innovation as a means of improving both the quality and cost of healthcare.
Many of those ideas were on display on the ATA show floor, where vendors exhibited the latest in home-based monitoring, teleconferencing and mobile clinical support solutions, to name a few. Educational sessions, meanwhile, brought members up to date on such issues as telehealth projects around the world, the increased use of phone-based applications and military-based healthcare.
Ron Emerson, global director of healthcare for Polycom, a Pleasanton, Calif.-based provider of telepresence solutions, said the industry would have to wrestle with issues of sustainability if it wants to flourish. Healthcare providers have to be convinced, he said, not only that telemedicine will improve the delivery of healthcare, but that they’ll be reimbursed for those services.
“It’s not just about the technology,” he said.
Karen Rheuban, the ATA’s outgoing president and medical director of the University of Virginia’s Office of Telemedicine, pointed out that several states have adopted legislation mandating private payer reimbursement for telemedicine. In addition, she said, the organization is working more closely with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on reimbursement and credentialing issues.
Jim White, vice president of connected hospital sales for Alcatel-Lucent, pointed out that hospitals are being forced to take a closer look at telemedicine because of federal guidelines eliminating reimbursement for so-called “never events” and re-admitted patients.
“Home healthcare dynamics are changing rapidly,” he said.
Dale C. Alverson, the ATA’s new president and the medical director of the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center’s Center for Telehealth and Cybermedicine Research, said the industry still faces challenges in licensure, portability, credentialing and reimbursement. As telemedicine programs and projects prove that healthcare can be delivered to remote regions and between distant sites, he said, both the government and the payer community will jump on board.
“Telemedicine is no longer a concept. It’s becoming a standard of care,” he said.