Funding arrangements for telehealth: encouraging efficiency rather than proliferation

The use of telehealth as a basis for delivering health services is growing across Australia, and there is clear potential for these technologies to address some of the enduring issues of access and costs of service delivery. However, appropriate incentives must be created to encourage clinicians and managers to evaluate the true opportunity costs and benefits of delivering services in this way against the relevant alternative. This paper examines how different funding arrangements might encourage or discourage efficient use of telehealth.