How does U.S. government reimbursement policies for healthcare providers impact the use of telemedicine in your state?
How does U.S. government reimbursement policies for healthcare providers impact the use of telemedicine in your state?
Expert Answer and Explanation
Week 3 Discussion – Analyzing Policy
Impact of Healthcare Reimbursement Policies
The mandatory US healthcare reimbursement policies are useful to different healthcare stakeholders as they allow for patients to access affordable care through the use of government insurers and private health insurance agencies. These reimbursement policies support the research and development of healthcare technologies such as telemedicine, which is an essential tool in providing healthcare services. As the incident cases of COVID-19 infections increase, healthcare systems are gradually shifting to telemedicine to provide healthcare services such as the remote screening for early symptoms of coronavirus.
Impact of Reimbursement Policies on Telemedicine in Mississippi
Mississippi has progressively assimilated telemedicine services and has the Telehealth Parity Law that requires third-party payers, Medicaid, and state employee health plans to cover the costs of telemedicine services. These services include but are not limited to live videos, monitoring remote patients, and store-and-forward services which allow for the remote access of medicines by patients from their homes.
Specifically, store-and-forward uses digital images of patients to provide diagnoses and is applicable in multiple areas such as radiography, dermatology, pathology, and wound care services. Mississippi requires the payment for telemedicine services to be equal to in-patient. In 2020, the president signed the HB 6047 Act that outlawed some of the limitations on Medicare, allowing millions of Americans to access to the Medicare program after the removal of the geographical area and the size restrictions it previously had (Sodhi, 2020).
Mississippi Medicaid reimbursed specific healthcare providers for live video telehealth for patients with present telepresenters. The reimbursement policies in Mississippi on Telemedicine have contributed to increased cost-effectiveness and enabled the creation of better patient care platforms through the promotion of multiple remote care solutions. Issues of unequal telemedicine service reimbursement should be addressed to ensure more medical practitioners and healthcare providers join the telehealth system, which are likely to mitigate different health challenges encountered throughout the State.
References
Baksheev, A., Turchina, Z., Sharova, O., Galaktionova, M., Chesnokova, L., & Rukavitsyna, E. (2020). Innovations in medicine: features of regulation and prospects for the development of telemedicine. Revista Inclusiones, 447-459. http://revistainclusiones.org/index.php/inclu/article/view/1484