"Telemedicine Getting a Test in Efforts to Cut Costs for Treating Prisoners"

"By law, inmates are guaranteed medical treatment. And with the ranks of prisoners rising an average of 8 percent every year since 1990, providing that treatment is an expensive proposition. To control costs and improve security, a handful of states and trying out telemedicine - health care via telecommunications. With government agencies, managed-care providers and legislators watching, these programs are serving as a proving grounds for broadening the use of telemedicine.

Two managed-care companies - Partners Health Care System, Inc., based in Boston, and Kalser Permanente, based in Sacramento, Calif. - had prison programs in mind when they recently established telemedicine networks as an inexpensive way to serve isolated, homebound eldely and chronically-ill subscribers.

The prison telemedicine systems have provided arguments for reimbursing the expenses of telemedicine when it is used to care for the general population. Currently, telemedicine is generally not covered by Medicare or private insurance.

Testimony from prison administrators before a Senate ad hoc committee on telemedicine led to the inclusion of a provision in last year's Balanced Budget Act that will require Medicare to pay for telemedicine delivered to certain rural areas found to have a shortage of doctors." [Murphy K.,The New York Times,June 8, 1998:D5]