According to Sanjula Jain, Ph.D., chief research officer at Trilliant Health, hospitals face a number of challenges when deciding where to invest in telehealth services after the pandemic.

Hospitals should invest or balance two areas: clinical benefit with patient and provider preferences. Jain stressed the importance of distinguishing between cases where telemedicine is effective and those where in-person care may be necessary.

“There are very few clinical use cases that really meet all of these criteria and this kind of Venn diagram overlap,” Jain said.

In the field of mental health, for example, telemedicine is well suited to treating conditions such as anxiety and depression.

Physical exams are less critical, and virtual visits may even increase patient convenience. However, Jain cautioned that in other areas, such as primary care, the lack of physical exams or lab tests during virtual visits could compromise the quality of care.

Another area to be examined is “payment parity”.

She said that while telemedicine may be reimbursed at the same cost as in-person visits, the lack of additional services, such as lab tests, during virtual appointments could result in lower overall payments for physicians.

Jain suggested considering these questions carefully before deciding to invest in telemedicine.