When Rand researchers studied retail clinics last year, they found that making access to health care more convenient triggers new use and additional costs. But Uscher-Pines said the Rand findings were not surprising. These other studies have shown that telehealth decreases overall health care spending, he said. “In fact, other more comprehensive studies - using six times the amount of claims data including the same population as the study - have found tremendous value of telehealth, with consistently repeatable results,” Gorevic said. He noted that the Rand study uses older data, and that many things have changed since then - including the technology, the rate at which these services are being adopted and patient engagement. Jason Gorevic, the CEO at Teladoc, the operator that provides telehealth services for CalPERS Blue Shield members, said the new study doesn’t square with Teladoc data showing the cost savings of telemedicine.Īccording to 2016 data, Gorevic said, only 13 percent of Teladoc visits represent new medical use. Researchers estimated that annual spending for respiratory illnesses increased about $45 per telehealth user, compared with patients who did not take advantage of such virtual consultations. Liability concerns may prompt telehealth physicians to recommend that a patient go in for a face-to-face appointment with a doctor, the study notes. While a single telehealth visit for a respiratory illness costs less than an in-person visit, it often results in more follow-up appointments, lab tests and prescriptions, which increases spending in the long run. The researchers focused on virtual visits for respiratory illnesses, which include sinusitis, bronchitis, pneumonia and tonsillitis, among others. CalPERS’ Blue Shield HMO started offering telehealth services, available 24/7 to its beneficiaries, in April 2012. The researchers examined 2011-13 utilization data of 300,000 people enrolled in the Blue Shield of California Health Maintenance Organization plan offered by the California Public Employees Retirement System, which covers current and former state employees and their families. The researchers found that only 12 percent of telemedicine visits replaced an in-person provider visit, while 88 percent represented new demand. “We found an increase in spending for the payer.” “What we found is contrary to what companies often say,” Uscher-Pines told California Healthline. But it found that virtual visits generate additional medical use. On average, a telehealth visit costs about $79, compared with about $146 for an office visit, according to the study. These virtual consultations are designed to replace more expensive visits to a doctor’s office or emergency room. This story can be republished for free ( details). Telehealth has been around for more than a decade, but its growth has been fueled more recently by the ubiquity of smartphones and laptops, said Lori Uscher-Pines, one of the study’s authors who is a policy researcher at the Rand Corp., a nonprofit think tank based in Santa Monica, Calif. The study, published Monday in the journal Health Affairs, shows that telehealth prompts patients to seek care for minor illnesses that otherwise would not have induced them to visit a doctor’s office. The convenience of “telehealth” appeals to patients, and the notion that it costs less than an in-office visit would make it attractive to employers and health plans.īut a new study suggests that while telehealth services may boost access to a physician, they don’t necessarily reduce health care spending, contrary to assertions by telehealth companies. Consultations with doctors by phone or video conference appear to be catching on, with well over a million virtual visits reported in 2015.
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