Studies demonstrate there are many clinical and economic benefits of telemedicne.
Nevertheless, two questions that agencies using telemedicine / telehealth need to ask are:
How do we make telemedicine work in our organization?
How do we measure effectiveness?
Developing a business plan for home telehealth is a key tool for:
• Monitoring the progress and growth of this service in your organization;
• Determining financial needs and outcomes;
• Learning more about your market; and
• Securing grant funding and/or revenue sources from payers.
One way that home telehealth can return its investment is by reducing trips to the home, while actually providing better care through more frequent contact with a patient. To determine the benefit of eliminating a trip to the home, first calculate the cost of salary+benefits for one nurse during the travel to and from the patient’s home; then, add in the cost of transportation (vehicle).
Here’s an example that assumes:
(1) cost of to/from travel is $60 per hour;
(2) a nurse makes one trip per week; and
(3) one HIPPA-compliant V2VIP™ Basic TeleMed Bundle, purchased at an annual cost of $249.99 (softphone, service and activation) or $428.99 (GXV-3240, service and activation).
Question: How long will it take to pay for equipment and service, based on saved trips to a patient’s home?
Answer: 4-7 weeks ($249.99 / $60) or ($428.99 / 60)—after this period of time, return on investment begins.
Most financial folk consider the life of electronic equipment to be 3-5 years. Break-even for equipment and service is about 1 – 2 months; so, reasonably, for the next 34-60 months, the equipment is returning $60 with each home tele-visit or from $8,160 to $14,400 for each unit purchased.