How Maine and New Hampshire Passed Laws Mandating Private Insurance Reimbursement for Telemedicine

Both Maine and New Hampshire in the Summer of 2009 passed laws which require insurance companies to pay for services delivered by telemedicine. For the benefit of other states who may ponder such a step, a new article on the TIE by Michael Edwards of the Northeast Telehealth Resource Center shares details about the similarities and differences in the laws and discuss some of what we know about how these laws got through the state legislatures.

New Home Telehealth Article Now Available on the TIE

The Approaching Telehealth Revolution in Home Care is updated examination of the current state of home care and how telehealth is effective tool for improving patient care and creating cost saving efficiencies. Look for this telehealth article and more in the TIE's article section.

Innovative Uses of Telehealth: Sports Telemedicine

What are some possible applications of telemedicine with athletes and sport participants? An Examination of Sports Telemedicine, recently published in the TIE's news section looks at how sports therapy can be used with telecommunication technologies.

New Legislation Would Increase Funding for Telemedicine

Congressmen Mike Thompson, D-California recently introduced telemedicine legislation would provide $30 million in grants to help health facilities pay for telehealth equipment and expand telehealth support services. Currently about 80% of Americans do not have access to telemedicine because of restrictions that limit funding for these types of facilities to rural areas. The Medicare Telehealth Enhancement Act (House Resolution 2068) would expand Medicare reimbursement to urban and suburban areas and include more facilities, the press release states. It will also allow doctors to monitor patients remotely.

Read More....

Washington State Superintendent of Public Instruction Publishes RFP for Teletherapy Project

The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) in Washington State is providing a bidding opportunity on a Request for Proposal (RFP) for a "Special Education and Related Services Teletherapy Pilot Project".

OSPI is initiating this RFP to solicit proposals from firms, school districts, institutes of higher education, medical facilities, and other agencies interested in participating on a project to develop, implement, and evaluate a teletherapy pilot program to provide designated special education and/or related services to students with disabilities ages three (3) through twenty-one (21) from rural, suburban, and urban locations within Washington State. The objective is to provide speech language, occupational, and physical therapy services via point-to-point teletherapy technologies in pilot public school districts that, due to unfilled personnel vacancies and/or personnel shortages, do not currently have the required special education-related service providers to implement services identified on special education students' individual education plans.

For more information, please read the complete RFP file available here.

New Hampshire Senate Passes Telemedicine Reimbursement Bill

Health insurers would no longer be able to require that a doctor meet a patient face-to-face in order to be reimbursed under a bill passed recently by the New Hampshire Senate. Senate Bill 138, which defines telemedicine and requires its coverage, passed the Senate on a 17-5 roll call vote. The measure now goes to the House for approval.

Read More...

Search Engines as Early Warning Epidemic Monitors

Google has come up with an innovative use of the Internet and health information. The NY Times recently noted:

One of Google’s geniuses figured out that whenever people get sick, they use Google to search for more information. By collating these searches, Google has created an early-warning system for flu outbreaks in your area, with color-coded graphs. Google says that Flu Trends has recognized outbreaks two weeks sooner than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has.

As Google aptly stated, this is an exciting development, because early detection of a disease outbreak can reduce the number of people affected. Google also published a paper on the research behind their Flu Trends in an article in Nature entitled Detecting influenza epidemics using search engine query data.