31 Oct Telehealth as an Affordable Alternative
By Grant Dattilo
Dattilo Consulting, Inc. (DCI) works with employers to offer rich medical benefits to their employees. We have designed a benefit strategy to help you retain employees and to assist employees in maintaining their health.
The broad access to care we seek in a medical benefit is offset by strategies to control premium cost sharing for employees and employers.
Telehealth as a Strategy
One strategy that could serve many purposes is the use of various forms of telehealth, sometimes called tele-medicine. Perhaps your company is already encouraging this, but employees have been slow to embrace it.
Telehealth is easy to define; “visiting” a medical provider using the video access from a smartphone, tablet, or personal computer. Instead of spending time and money to visit the provider, an individual can schedule a live, online examination. The individual sees and interacts with the provider.
Used wisely, telehealth visits can reduce the time and expense of traveling to a medical clinic. In many cases, a telehealth examination is less costly when compared to a clinic visit. Provider overheads are less costly since a clinic or hospital need not provide physical space for the provider’s use. Many telehealth exams can be done by Physician Assistants or Nurse Practitioners rather than more expensive medical doctors.
Reimbursements to medical providers could be the same but are often quite a bit less for telehealth visits. These savings could be reflected in a reduction in total claims paid by an insurance carrier; this should reduce premium cost, though marginally.
Telehealth visits are particularly useful when consulting with a provider about chronic conditions, follow-ups to surgery and to earlier visits. Patients seeking advice about prescription medicines, checking lab test or results of scans, and other types of care might well be served by telemedicine. Individuals that live a long distance from a clinic could greatly benefit.
Mental health professionals are using telehealth to do more “talk therapy” and assessments.
The use of telehealth is growing rapidly.
Can Spur Additional Spending
On the other hand, evidence suggests that telehealth visits can increase the number of referrals to specialists or for lab tests and scans. This reflects the provider’s need to be thorough and certain of his or her diagnosis and treatment advice.
A virtual visit with a dermatologist’s Physician Assistant may allay concerns about the sudden appearance of a mole, rash, or perhaps a cyst. The exam could result in a “don’t worry, this will pass,” to “here is a prescription,” or in some cases, “You’d better come in, soon!”
Whatever the provider decides, your telehealth visit could save you a great deal of time and worry, and that is better than ignoring a problem.
This is an Emerging Science
Remote monitoring digital devices that you wear on, or in, your body can be connected to a smartphone or watch. These, in turn, allow providers to monitor a person’s health in real time. Some implanted devices are connected to a provider’s computer system and send a warning to a person when it appears a crisis is occurring; it may generate a provider’s welfare phone call.
Emails, texts, video messages, and more are part of the telehealth approach to medical care.
There are many online searchable resources concerning telehealth. Check out your group insurance company to see what it offers. The federal government offers information at Telehealth.HHS.gov.
DCI is happy to provide information and answer questions about your medical plan and telehealth.
