Congress finally getting serious about telemedicine, but are CDOs ready?

The latest ‘doc fix’ bill, H.R. 1470, was introduced last week. Though it has quite a ways to go before it’s sent to conference or passed, the bill has some pretty nice language for telemedicine and care coordination enthusiasts. Though it’s probably less than I would like, Section 4 (Encouraging Care Management for Individuals with Chronic Care Needs) is a great start. The telehealth language is pretty general but I like how it is making sure that telemedicine isn’t precluded from being reimbursed. Most interesting is that GAO is being asked to do a study on telehealth services, which is a good precursor to further refinements. It doesn’t help the industry immediately but sets the stage for long-term success for sure. This new legislation plus the upcoming American Telemedical Association (ATA) 2015 Conference got me thinking about how interested patients are in telehealth. Kathleen Irwin, a medical market researcher at web-based EHR evaluation group Software Advice, recently conducted a survey report drilling down into health consumer’s perception of the growing telemedicine industry. As we’ve seen in previous telehealth research, the Software Advice survey found that the great majority (75%) of patients are interested in virtual visits. While the interest from patients is obvious, most care delivery organizations probably aren’t ready to take advantage of it. There’s a significant opportunity for providers who can...
Source: The Healthcare IT Guy - Category: Information Technology Authors: Tags: Uncategorized American Telemedical Association Connected Health digital health technologies Health Informatics Telehealth Telemedicine Videotelephony Source Type: blogs