Economic Evaluation of Interactive Teledermatology Compared with Conventional Care

Teledermatology offers a means of providing specialist care to underserved patients. The ob-jectives of this study were to compare the costs of interactive teledermatology with conventional care, and to evaluate from a healthcare provider perspective whether interactive teledermatology is economically viable in the northeastern region of the United States. We studied the interac-tive teledermatology practice at Nantucket Cottage Hospital on Nantucket Island and the am-bulatory clinics at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. The cost-min-imization analysis compared the costs of an interactive teledermatology practice with that of a face-to-face dermatology clinic. One-way sensitivity analyses examined the effect of varying the costs of technology, physician compensation, or clinic space on the overall cost of interactive tele-dermatology. We also assessed the economic viability of the interactive teledermatology practice by comparing the operating costs with reimbursements. The total hourly operating costs for the interactive teledermatology practice on Nantucket Island and the face-to-face clinic in Boston were $274 and $346, respectively. Three separate one-way sensitivity analyses showed that, for the cost of the teledermatology practice to equal that of the conventional clinic, the cost of tele