GAO Report: Telehealth: Use in Medicare and Medicaid

Do Medicare and Medicaid pay when beneficiaries use two-way video visits to get care from their doctors? It depends. Medicare pays for some two-way video visits—referred to as "telehealth"—if the patients connect from rural health facilities. Medicare is testing new ways to provide health care that allow telehealth coverage regardless of location. Under Medicaid, states may cover different types of telehealth services from different types of care providers. In the 6 states we reviewed, officials from states that were generally more rural said they used telehealth more frequently than officials from more urban states.