The risks of telemedicine were summarized in a report released by The Doctors Company, the nation's largest physician-owned medical malpractice insurer.
The risks include the possibility of suboptimal diagnoses and treatments, along with the added threat of failure to refer. These issues raise the very real possibility that a rise in telehealth could lead to an increase in medical liability and an erosion of the doctor-patient relationship. Other risks involve confidentiality issues, reimbursement issues, and restrictions on online prescribing in some areas.
It's still difficult to assess whether or by how much liability risks will tick up in the future, the report's authors say. Over the past 15 years, while telemedicine-related claims have increased as more doctors have turned to virtual healthcare, the proportion of such claims within The Doctors Company database has remained relatively small.
Of filed claims, The Doctors Company found in a separate study that diagnostic errors are the most common allegation in telemedicine-related claims. In that study of claims from the company's database, 71% of 28 telemedicine-related claims were related to diagnoses (especially a failure to diagnose cancer), 11% were associated with mismanagement of treatment, and 7% were related to improper management of a surgical patient.
