ATA Hopes Telemedicine will Lower Consumer Healthcare Costs
James Pike, the incoming president of American Telemedicine Association, gave a plenary speech at the ATA’s annual conference in Minneapolis that was held on 17th May Tuesday morning. James Pike noted that the American Telemedicine Association has strong hopes of telemedicine lowering consumer healthcare costs, although there are still many challenges to be conquered.
In his speech, the incoming ATA president stated that remote care still remains to be an industry and movement in flux. He was quick to note that the industry has grown massively and its maturation is by no accident. However, despite all the positive strides the industry has made to this extent, there is still more important work that has to be done in order to ensure telemedicine’s progress.
Today, more and more payer organizations have stopped considering telemedicine as an add-on, and have since adopted it into their businesses as a critical part of their operations, said Pike. He also noted that the official recognition and increased payments coming from insurers have given credibility and proven that telemedicine continues to be widely embraced. He continued to add that this evolution must not stop; it has to continue for the industry to realize its full potential.
James Pike served under President George W. Bush as the Secretary of Veterans Affairs from the month of December 2007 to January 2009. He is also a senior vice president at Fairfax, the government Virgin-based contractor CGI Federal.
In his speech, Pike continued to say that all the parties involved with telemedicine need to continually evaluate their current state and decide what is important to focus on. They need to look for ways that will drive more people towards adopting this technology for the improvement of their lives. Plus, moving from the traditional hospital-centric system to a patient-centered system is the future.
He ended by noting that easy access, convenience and punctuality are all the aspects that drive telemedicine to lower health costs and hence provide higher value.