Center for Telehealth and Cybermedicine Research

Virtual Traveling by Telehealth

The costs of traveling to and from sites include not only the cost of gasoline, vehicle usage, lodging, but more importantly the time and opportunity lost with patients, the time to confer with other health care providers and the time to consult.

(photos by Lew Real and Richard Scotten)

Patients/clients and their communities will also save money and time if their travel time is reduced or limited.

These pages are designed to help you estimate the costs of “windshield time” vs. telehealth conferencing. Please feel free to call the Center for further information and assistance in helping you augment your services through the use of telehealth.

Click here to link to the In Person Travel Expenses Excel spreadsheet. This will calculate mileage, vehicle costs, air fare, meals and lodging.

Click here to link to the Opportunities Lost with Windshield Time link. This will calculate number of patients visits lost and fees lost while commuting.

Carbon Emissions calculate. The Additional Cost of Conventional Travel. To calculate the amount of carbon emissions per trip by motor vehicle or by plane go to this page scroll down to In Your Car and complete the form. There is a link to FuelEconomy.gov which will help you select the particular year, make and model of the vehicle. If you are flying scroll down to In The Air and complete the form.

Telehealth is the use of electronic information and telecommunications technologies to support long-distance clinical health care, patient and professional health-related education, public health and community health, health systems development and epidemiology.

Traveling by Telehealth

Starting August 1, 2007, the NM Medical Assistance Division, Human Services Department, will reimburse for covered services by eligible providers at the same rate as a physical face-to-face encounter. In addition, reimbursement is made to the originating-site, where the patient is located, for an interactive telehealth system fee; $22.47 per transmission.

Eliminates the costs for mileage reimbursement, vehicle costs, air fare, meals and lodging

Minimizes the hardships of extended travel for patients/clients

Supports local economies by keeping patient/client dollars for prescriptions, lodging, and gasoline in their communities

Supports local providers by bringing education and consultation to them In many communities in NM this also means the clinics can stay open for their patients/clients, while providing additional training and consulting opportunities for their staff.

The Center for Telehealth has four sites available on north campus for video and audio conferencing:

  1. at the CFTH on Columbia,
  2. in Family Practice,
  3. on the 3rd floor of UNMH and
  4. on the 6th floor in the Richardson Pavilion.

Click here to link to Videoconferencing Equipment and Networking Page. This page will give you global information on basic videoconferencing equipment and technology. Please contact our office for further information regarding your specific telehealth needs.

Contact the Center for Telehealth and Cybermedicine Research; we can assist in designing and setting up your own system(s).

(photos by Richard Scotten)