Dr Debra Patt Addresses Medicare’s Successful Reimbursement of Telemedicine

Debra Patt, MD, PhD, MBA, executive vice president of Texas Oncology, discusses the path of telemedicine reimbursement during the pandemic and possible ways it will change after the pandemic, including that some aspects of radiation treatment supervision will go away.

Transcript

How would you characterize telemedicine reimbursement in the oncology setting?

So far, reimbursement is going really well for telemedicine. We know that Medicare has put as part of their proposed fee schedule, the Physician Fee Schedule, reimbursement for telemedicine that will be robust. Only some aspects of radiation treatment supervision will go away after the global pandemic. So when Medicare reimbursement is strong, commercial payers tend to follow and we also were observing that. Now, there are state policies that vary by state regarding telemedicine, so each state has to make sure that they curate and advocate for appropriate telemedicine policy at the state level. But I think telemedicine is here to stay in ways that continue to be clinically meaningful to patient care.