Summary

Description

Despite legislative changes from 2001 to 2008 that increased Medicare payment rates for telehealth and decreased regulatory burdens, the study Telehealth and Medicare - Payment Policy, Current Use, and Prospects for Growth, in Volume 3, Issue 4 of Medicare and Medicaid Research Review, finds that only 369 providers had 10 or more Medicare telehealth consultations in 2009. Roughly half of the 369 were mental health professionals, and about one-in-five of the 369 were non-physician professionals (e.g., physician assistants and nurse practitioners). The comparative advantage of mental health could be the verbal (rather than physical contact) nature of mental health care. The comparative advantage of non-physician professionals could be their lower labor costs. In some cases, it will be socially desirable to expand telehealth services, but only in cases where the value of emergency access or reduced patient travel time outweighs the additional cost of delivering care via telehealth.