Virtual care is helping cut major costs in diabetes management, a new PricewaterhouseCoopers Health Research Institute report points out. This is particularly true with diabetes care, as evidenced in the figure above.
Doctors and hospitals are now more mindful of readmission rates and measuring quality metrics – in short, they’re taking care to avoid paying government penalties. Virtual care, such as telemedicine, is turning out to be a cost-effective and efficient means to improve follow-up care, the report says.
For every metric, tools like telemedicine helped reduce costs for diabetes. Despite the $15 million investment in a virtual health infrastructure, the costs thus far are cut by 9 percent.
The report projects that such a trend is likely to continue – and that virtual care will help keep the U.S. healthcare spend trending down.
