Are state telemedicine parity laws associated with greater use of telemedicine in the emergency department?

ABSTRACT:

Background

Telemedicine is a valuable tool to improve access to specialty care in emergency departments (EDs), and states have passed telemedicine parity laws requiring insurers to reimburse for telemedicine visits. Our objective was to determine if there is an association between such laws and the use of telemedicine in an ED.

Methods

As part of the 2016 and 2017 National ED Inventory-USA surveys, directors of all 5404 EDs in the United States were surveyed on the use of telemedicine. States were divided into those with any form of telemedicine parity law and those without (as of January 2016). We investigated the association between a telemedicine parity law and the use of telemedicine controlling for ED characteristics; state was included as a random intercept.

Results

SUBMITTER: Zachrison KS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7812473 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature