Methods of Reimbursement for Telemedicine Services: A Scoping Review

With the advent of coronavirus-2019 (COVID-19), telemedicine services have played an essential role in reducing the transmission of this virus between patients and health care providers. Nevertheless, financial and reimbursement barriers are the biggest challenge in adopting these technologies. It seems necessary to determine the successful reimbursement methods in different countries. The purpose of this study was to identify methods of reimbursing telemedicine services.  

A search without time limitation was conducted on the PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus databases in December 2020 and updated in January 2022. Articles were identified using predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Two researchers independently evaluated the titles, abstracts, and full text of the articles.  

Out of 4946 identified articles, 28 articles were included. In these studies, the most used insurances were Medicare (n = 17), and Medicaid (n = 15). The majority of services included telepsychiatry (n = 7), telehealth (n = 7), and telemedicine (n = 7). There was no difference between the reimbursements in telemedicine services and face-to-face visits in 18 studies.  

Various government, state, and private insurance reimbursed telemedicine services. In most studies, there was no difference between reimbursing telemedicine services and in-person visits. Differences in the type and number of reimbursements may be due to the year of publication of the articles, changes in covered service policies, and state laws. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is crucial to develop and update the guidelines and regulations for telemedicine reimbursement. Future studies can examine the telemedicine reimbursement methods in developed and developing countries before and after the COVID-19 pandemic.