Dr Anne Schmidt Discusses Reimbursing for Telemedicine

Until there is more data to support the outcomes of using telemedicine, payers will be more cautious about getting into reimbursing for the technology, said Anne Schmidt, MD, associate medical director at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama.

Transcript (slightly modified)

Why has there seemed to be a reluctance to dive into reimbursing telemedicine?

As far as reimbursement for telemedicine, I think that as payers we're all looking for new ways to optimize health outcomes. So I'm not sure that I'd say "reluctance" to dive into telemedicine—as payers, again, we are more conservative than some other groups that are out there. And we realize that the better outcomes that we can promote for our members—physicians, patients—the better off we all will be: financially, patients will have better outcomes; physicians will have better satisfaction—job satisfaction—and better outcomes for themselves.

So I think what we're looking for is more evidence right now. More data to just support the fact that there are better outcomes, and I think Medicare's NDPP [National Diabetes Prevention Program] and the fact that they are now going to reimburse for that gives us some data to support that.