Insurance Coverage for Telemedicine

Last week the Harvard Pilgrim Ethics Advisory Group (EAG) devoted its quarterly meeting to the topic of "Developing a Framework of Ethics for Telemedicine." I chair the group and write a consultation report based on the discussion. Four of the group's recommendations are relevant for all health insurers and health plans, so I'm presenting them here:

1.  Nationally, telemedicine is evolving rapidly in a somewhat helter-skelter manner. The EAG recommended that insurers should focus coverage on areas in which telemedicine can minister to significant health needs. Fitbit and other health trackers are popular with consumers but do not reflect the kind of “need” that health insurance should cover. In contrast, services for patients who cannot access important care because of geography or limited mobility and services that maintain or improve quality while reducing costs provide real value.
2.  Patients and physicians both see continuity of care as a crucial health care value. But patients also value access and convenience, which have driven the uptake of telemedicine. Ideally, insurers will find ways to reconcile these potentially conflicting values, as by requiring telemedicine providers to foster communication with the patient’s primary care physician if the patient gives permission. The group imagined technological “fixes” that would encourage patients to be active participants in establishing continuity of care, as by having the telemedicine provider’s note go to the patient, to be shared with whomever the patient wishes to inform. 
3.  One of the questions the EAG had been asked was: "Should Harvard Pilgrim be a leader in providing telemedicine coverage or wait for well established quality information and support from the relevant professional organizations prior to offering access?" The group saw the question as too either/or. Telemedicine is at once (a) a promising innovation that is (b) energized by societal trends in use of technology in other sectors of life, but (c) uncertain in its impact on cost and quality of care. It encouraged Harvard Pilgrim to be active in the area of telemedicine, but do so in a try it/evaluate it/fix it/or drop it manner, in order to learn from experience and contribute to knowledge about the emerging trend.
4.   A Google search for "telemedicine providers" brings up a dizzying array of links. There is a lot of money to be made, and the marketplace is in a feeding frenzy. Given the certainty that consumers will be exposed to services ranging from high quality/high value enterprises to bottom feeders hoping to take the money and run, the EAG recommended that insurers only cover services from vendors who share and apply the same values with regard to improving quality, reducing overall costs, and supporting continuity of care. This revenue prediction table illustrates why the marketplace offers patients both promise and risk: 
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   SKYROCKETING REVENUE PREDICTIONS FOR TELEMEDICINE!

To learn more about the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care ethics program, see previous blog posts here and here, and this article in Health Affairs