Healthcare organizations, in a letter Monday, called on the Congressional Budget Office and the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission to use alternative data sources to create cost estimates and analysis of telemedicine use in Medicare.
More than 20 organizations, researchers and providers signed onto the letter, including Ascension Health, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Telehealth Program, Elizabeth Krupinski, Ph.D., of the University of Arizona, and Joseph Kvedar, M.D., of Partners HealthCare.
The letter's authors note that while it is hard to find "sufficient Medicare data" for telemedicine, "alternative data sources can and should be used to inform and produce an analysis of providing Medicare beneficiaries access to telemedicine."
Some of those other data sources include the commercial sector, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Medicaid program, they write. Letter (.pdf)