A recent study found that most telehealth services offered by providers in other states are used to maintain continuity of treatment rather than recruit new clients.
The purpose of the study was to compare the use of interstate telehealth among many Medicare recipients after March 2020, the date when all states initiated temporary solutions designed to allow physicians to practice medicine in other jurisdictions via telemedicine, and the use of interstate telemedicine among Medicare recipients during the years 2017-19.
- Also Read: What You Need to Know About New TSP Withdrawal Flexibility for Federal Retirees
- Also Read: FEDVIP in 2024—What Federal Employees Should Know Before Open Season
- Also Read: FEGLI Life Insurance: The Changes Federal Employees Should Know About Before They Head Toward Retirement
They found, among other things, that there was an increased level of correlation between the billing and main patients diagnosed for in-state and out-of-state telemedicine trips and that most people who underwent treatment from providers in other states were patients whose conditions were routine.
The study notes, “These study results must alleviate potential issues that prolonging licensing requirements options will lead to out-of-state physicians attracting patients from their established healthcare professionals.”
The study also found that approximately two-thirds of out-of-state telemedicine trips were with a doctor in a nearby county and that a higher percentage of rural sick people used both out-of-state in-person and telemedicine assistance compared to patients in non-rural regions. It was discovered that this was the case when patients living in rural areas were compared to sick persons living in non-rural areas. Because of this, the recommendations advise that states with rural towns along their boundaries should want to implement standards such as licensure recognition to enable continuous access to telemedicine in remote towns. This is because of the benefits that telemedicine may provide to rural communities.
According to the information provided in the article, even though the number of out-of-state telehealth meetings had a significant increase in frequency in 2020 compared to previous years, they still only constituted a tiny portion of the total number of outpatient services during the time covered by the analysis. However, that percentage varied significantly from area to region, with the District of Columbia having the most at 9.3 percent and Louisiana and Utah having the least at 0.4 percent, respectively.
The authors believe that if jurisdictions are aware of the level of care their citizens receive in other jurisdictions, it will be easier for them to decide the commitment it would take to enable telehealth services to be provided from other states once the COVID-19 pandemic has been contained.
Contact Information:
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 9568933225
Bio:
Rick Viader is a Federal Retirement Consultant that uses proven strategies to help federal employees achieve their financial goals and make sure they receive all the benefits they worked so hard to achieve.
In helping federal employees, Rick has seen the need to offer retirement plan coaching where Human Resources departments either could not or were not able to assist. For almost 14 years, Rick has specialized in using federal government benefits and retirement systems to maximize retirement incomes.
His goals are to guide federal employees to achieve their financial goals while maximizing their retirement incomes.
