Excellent News About Growth of Telemedicine Field

On the political and business side, the telemedicine field is growing and changing rapidly. It's an exciting time.

In a blog authored by Microsoft chief medical technologist, we hear that Medicare is now reimbursing for telemedicine devices. This is crucial for the growth of the market, and shows investors that it's a good technology to invest in.

I recently received notification from a professional colleague that suggests Medicare is beginning to see the light. Dr. Thomas Gumprecht is an ENT doc practicing in the Seattle area. More than a decade ago, he began lobbing private insurers to remove contract language that forbids additional billing for cognitive professional services provided to patients by electronic means including the telephone. He actually got the insurers in our area to agree that it was OK to charge for these services so long as any patients receiving them had been notified well in advance, and in writing, that they would be charged.
Now it seems that the federal government may be giving a green light to docs who want a similar arrangement for patients receiving Medicare. According to Dr. Gumprecht, “CMS now permits direct billing of electronic services----and it is important to say ALL ELECTRONIC SERVICES---PHONE, FAX, EMAIL, VIDEO, TEXTING----because logically it is a professional medical service being rendered electronically and the exact mode should not be one or the other but a continuum between all of them. With this breakthrough, most other carriers will fall inline with the CMS approach, and at least permit direct billing of patients”.

In an article in e-Week blog, we hear about the projected growth of the telemedicine market:

An ABI Research report predicts that about 15 million mobile and wireless health devices will be in use by early 2012 for the purpose of remotely monitoring the well-being of elderly or at-risk people, despite patchy insurance coverage for these systems. Using embedded cellular connectivity, so-called telehealth devices can collect vital signs wirelessly from a range of external devices such as weight scales and blood pressure cuffs.