Americans prefer telemedicine to a live doctor

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Researchers at Harvard Medical School found that the number of telemedicine services demanded over the course of ten years increased by 28 percent. To do this, they examined the data on the medical care that Medicare provides. The results are published in The Journal of the American Medical Association. Press release available on the EurekAlert website.

Telemedicine has the potential to expand access and improve the quality of medical care, especially for patients with limited access to medical care. For widespread telemedicine, more than half of the states have passed corresponding laws.

However, Medicare has introduced a more conservative approach. Currently, insurance pays telemedicine care for patients living in rural or sparsely populated areas, where access to regular medical care is limited.

The main telemedicine users are people with mental disabilities who are less well-off than the average Medicare client.

According to the researchers, there are many potential barriers to the development of telemedicine. The findings will help inform government officials about the demand for telehealth care to improve it and make it more accessible to doctors in one state and patients in another.

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