Although telehealth and telemedicine have a lot of overlap, there are some important distinctions between them you should understand, especially if you’re considering a telehealth platform or telemedicine system. So — telehealth vs. telemedicine — what’re the differences?

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What This Article Covers

• What Is Telemedicine?
• What Is Telehealth?
• Differences
• Examples
• Insurance Coverage
• Cost
• Benefits
• Next Steps

Before we get into telehealth vs. telemedicine, let’s first have a look at what telemedicine and telehealth are.

What Is Telemedicine?

Telemedicine is a medium of health care where medical professionals provide care from a distance. The practice of telemedicine extensively focuses on modern telecommunications technology and medical software such as videoconferencing, voice calling, direct messaging and more.

It’s a medium of care delivery facilitated by communications instruments without in-person visits. A subset of telehealth, telemedicine makes health care more accessible with online appointments and travel savings.

According to a study published by Gallup, 38% of Americans chose to forego health care services in 2022 because of the overall costs. The stat highlights a growing need for affordable care among the population.

Telemedicine can help bridge this gap. It plays a vital role in reducing overall health care costs by helping patients get in touch with specialists remotely. This saves travel time and costs.

Furthermore, telemedicine is popular for delivering clinical services to patients, such as prescription management, chronic illness care and follow-up visits. Physicians can also provide medications without physical prescriptions.

Telemedicine uses health information technology and bolsters new treatment models such as automated logic flows that identify and allow doctors to provide emergency attention to chronically ill patients.

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What Is Telehealth?

Telehealth is a care delivery method that uses electronic records and communications technology to provide long-distance care and non-clinical services.

Telehealth encompasses a broader range of telecommunications equipment and digital technologies than telemedicine. In one sense, telehealth is an umbrella term that covers telemedicine.

The Office of the Health Resources & Services Administration includes several areas under the umbrella of telehealth, including:

• Electronic information and telecommunication technology to support long-distance clinical health care
• Patient and professional health-related education
• Health administration
• Public health

Telehealth also includes mHealth — applications you can download and use on a mobile device. Most medical applications are set up in a way so that they connect with your providers’ systems seamlessly. They can record health vitals such as sugar levels and blood pressure.

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Difference Between Telehealth and Telemedicine

Does an activity tracker come under telehealth or telemedicine? Will a video call appointment with my doctor be considered telemedicine?

The differences between telehealth and telemedicine are significant. While telemedicine is associated with only the clinical aspects of health care, telehealth enables care professionals to provide both clinical and non-clinical functions.

By definition, telehealth encompasses telemedicine. By telehealth, we mean services that go outside a doctor’s office such as the store-and-forward technique. However, telemedicine has a more focused approach and only provides diagnostic services.

Telehealth offers a wide variety of medical services to patients. These include:

• Synchronous: This type of telehealth is all around us at every moment. Videoconferencing is the backbone of synchronous communication. As the name suggests, patients and doctors connect via a real-time video call remotely. This is by far the most popular telehealth option in use today.
• Asynchronous: Often known as the “store-and-forward’’ method, asynchronous communication aids offline storage. Health care providers share and receive patient records among themselves.
  • Depending on the internet bandwidth, the method can take longer to deliver files. Upon receiving the files a clinic or hospital stores them for the doctor to review at a later time.
• Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM): Remote patient monitoring uses sensors to transmit patient vitals to care providers electronically. There are various devices, such as heart rate monitors, pulse oximeters and blood pressure cuffs, that house sensors to record patient data. Providers connect these trackers with medical systems that extract the readings electronically.
• mHealth: It offers a way for medical professionals to provide continuous health care services to patients through portable devices. It uses laptops, tablets and mobile phone health applications to stay connected to patients 24/7. Health-based apps monitor health conditions and update doctors in real time with alerts.

Telemedicine fits in the synchronous group of telehealth. It helps clinics and doctors provide health care services through telecommunications instruments remotely. It incorporates videoconferencing solutions to set up appointments between doctors and patients.

Telehealth usually deals with more than just patient-doctor conversations, unlike telemedicine. It includes various reports from medical labs, health care education for patients and new medical recruits, training, and collaboration with medical technologies.

On the other hand, telemedicine is limited to only remote clinical services such as appointments.

Through telehealth, every health care professional, such as admin staff, doctors, educators, pharmacists and frontline workers, provides service to patients. In telemedicine, only certified health care professionals offer medical support.

With more avenues such as RPM and asynchronous communication, telehealth helps patients holistically. In contrast, telemedicine is limited to low-range health problems like a fever. It cannot help chronically ill patients. In case of emergencies, care providers suggest consulting hospitals directly.

While both rely on medical technologies, telemedicine focuses more on communication equipment such as videoconferencing, email, smartphones and wireless devices. Teleehalth, given its broader definition, also deals with software for image transmission, nursing call centers, remote patient management, e-health education and more.

One thing to note here is that not every kind of teleconferencing falls under telemedicine. If a medical expert talks to medical students in a conference, that’ll fall under telehealth as it’s non-clinical. On the other hand the standard patient-doctor interactions fall under telemedicine.

In the U.S., there’re legal differences between telemedicine and telehealth. For example, the state of Texas recognizes the two as separate and, thus, has different regulations for each. On the other hand, Michigan doesn’t acknowledge the difference between the two terms and, therefore, doesn’t have separate laws.

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Examples

There are various examples of telehealth and telemedicine in health care today. To better understand the differences between telemedicine vs. telehealth, we’ve put down some for your convenience.

Telemedicine

Here are some of the popular applications of telemedicine:

• Yearly wellness and physical checkups
• E-prescriptions and online refill requests
• Optical care
• Mental health treatment
• Dermatology consultation

Telehealth

In the context of telehealth vs. telemedicine, telehealth inches past telemedicine as it encompasses a wider range of services. Along with the uses mentioned above, it’s also popularly employed for:

• Sending lab reports, medical exam results, and other documents or images to clinics.
• Conducting medical education through online seminars.
• Coordinating patient care by communicating with other care providers.
• Recording live health data through mHealth apps.

Insurance Coverage

Medical insurance providers have taken notice of changing trends and started creating lucrative insurance packages to attract more patients. Both sectors had minimal insurance options in the past.

A survey by SingleCare on patient satisfaction with virtual health care concluded that out of 1,700 adults, 60% of the respondents reported that they possess insurance plans that cover the cost of telehealth care. Although this figure is from 2021 and has potentially changed since then, it still gives us an idea of how far telehealth insurance coverage has come over the years — especially from zero coverage.

Medicare and most medical companies offer affordable self-pay and membership pricing for telemedicine insurance. This is a great help for patients to select the best care provider for them without worrying about the high treatment costs.

In terms of Medicare and Medicaid, you need to meet certain requirements in order to get telehealth/telemedicine insurance. However, the chances have gone up significantly as Medicare is introducing newer policies.

In fact, according to ASPE’s telehealth household pulse survey, patients with Medicare or Medicaid coverage used telehealth services more frequently in 2022 than those with private or no insurance.

Insurance companies across the U.S. are providing insurance packages for telehealth to help boost patients’ access to better care. Commercial insurance companies are establishing partnerships with telehealth care providers to offer minimum-cost insurance plans for patients.

While different companies provide insurance for telehealth, the terms are ever-changing in every region. There’re employer-sponsored plans for telehealth as well.

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Cost

Telemedicine and telehealth can cut down costs for a medical clinic. For starters, providing online consultations through laptops and mobile phones reduces the need for costly patient check-in systems and waiting rooms. Virtual care also reduces travel needs.

As a clinic, you can allow patients to make monthly payments. This helps patients to pay in easy installments for medical services rather than paying a lump sum at once. Similarly patients enrolled in Medicare Part B have to pay only 20% of total telehealth costs.

Telehealth reduces transportation costs of patients living far away by bridging geographical distances. It also plays a significant part in increasing patient satisfaction by providing various avenues for care.

Furthermore, telehealth also provides the opportunity to use store-and-forward transfers for medical files and images which makes it convenient for doctors to evaluate patient reports.

If you’re looking to implement telehealth or telemedicine into your practice, check with the private and government insurance providers you accept to get an idea of what they’ll cover for your patients.

Primary Benefits

These forms of virtual care provide various benefits to both you and your patients. Here are some of them.

Patients

Virtual care is a great way to save travel money and avail medical services through electronic communication equipment. If you’re looking for a reason to start opting for telemedicine and telehealth services, read on. If you’re a provider looking to convince patients to take up remote care services, you can forward this list to them.

• Waste less time at appointments with remote meeting facilities.
• Avoid long waiting room queues and travel.
• Keep away from the clinic with telemedicine and telehealth to avoid getting infected by other patients.
• Avail online consultation and flexible schedule times as per your work schedule.
• Call providers in case of queries and questions.
• Save on costs.

Providers

Telehealth and telemedicine provide health care professionals with the necessary information and tools they require to deliver care seamlessly. With these two options, you can:

• Educate patients about remote patient monitoring and enable devices to record health vitals.
• Expand your clientele. Offer services to new patient populations which weren’t available because of distance barriers.
• Improve data recording and analysis with telehealth software.
• Deliver coordinated care.
• Avoid unnecessary queues. Schedule online appointments unless it’s an emergency.

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Next Steps

Though some primary benefits may differ between telehealth vs. telemedicine, there’s no doubt that both are crucial for care delivery. In modern times, some medical practitioners might have a polarizing view on telehealth vs. telemedicine but also see the importance of remote patient care.
As we move towards more futuristic medical devices, you should know what the two mean and how they’re related. Health care providers must take active steps in educating patients regarding their available options.

Looking to add telemedicine and telehealth services to your portfolio? Look at this comparison guide to learn about the tools you require to enable virtual care services.

What telemedicine and telehealth resources do you use at your practice? Tell us about your experience in the comments below.