We have all had to make substantial changes to our daily lives due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We have had to replace personal meetings with video conference (or, gasp, telephone) chats. Medical appointments, too, have changed suddenly and dramatically. In-person appointments have largely been replaced by telemedicine video appointments. But the format did not appear out of nowhere. Medicine has seen a steady growth in telemedicine for years. What is the future of medicine and telemedicine?

Telemedicine is, essentially, the remote practice of medicine where in-person interaction is not necessary, difficult, or impossible. It exists in various forms. One example is radiology: did you know that the radiologist who read your most recent emergency room X-ray may be hundreds of miles away in her home office? Telemedicine can certainly be a matter of convenience, too: some follow-up visits do not require in person examination. Who wants to take an hour or two out of their busy day to drive to a specialist for a followup appointment? It is much more appealing to do that remotely. Of course, though, not all care is equal. Your primary care provider cannot take your vitals or physically examine you without you in the same room, for example. So, telemedicine has its proper place.

What will its role be once the COVID-19 crisis has passed?

Well, it turns out the crisis thrust a slow moving evolution onto the medical care delivery system, and there are some growing pains. Some providers report private insurers have had no idea how to reimburse providers for the explosion in televisits. Medicare is in the same situation for reimbursing providers. Notably, one of the problems remains that providers are being reimbursed at lower rates than for comparable in-person visits. The American Medical Association has felt it necessary to create a website with guidance for providers to navigate the payment landscape. Finally, many folks (patients and providers alike) are not necessarily tech savvy enough to make it work.

So, while COVID has put a lot on hold, it has tested the ability of the medical system to fit telemedicine into its framework. Once the pandemic passes, we expect that a significant amount of visits will remain available virtually, but a majority of us are going to be more than happy to be able to sit with our doctor again.  

Find the AMA guideline here: AMA quick guide to telemedicine practice

Read more about telemedicine here: Pediatric Neurology Telemedicine May Lead To Fewer Hospital Visits; Promise Of Telemedicine Gets Closer With New Tools; In Home Primary Care Visits Hope To Improve Health Care, Save Money