Bradley Merrill Thompson, Member of the Firm in the Health Care and Life Sciences practice in the Washington, DC, office, was quoted in an e-book titled Delivering on the mHealth Opportunity.
The buzz surrounding mobile healthcare has steadily grown over the past two years. There's no question that this area holds enormous potential in terms of improving patient care in the U.S. and overseas. However, like many promising markets, there are also significant obstacles, such as who will pay for these new services?
Thompson said for the mHealth industry to achieve widespread reimbursements from private and public insurers, including the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, payers must be convinced that the products and services directly impact patient outcomes, and that could take substantial investment.
"Someone's got to be willing to step up and fund the outcomes research to figure out if a device actually moves the health needle before payers are going to be willing to shell out for it," Thompson said.