Telehealth for orthopedic oncology may be cost-effective vs. in-office visits
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Key takeaways:
- Telehealth may be a cost-effective option for patients who require orthopedic oncological care.
- Telehealth was associated with cost savings and similar clinical outcomes vs. in-office visits.
Use of telehealth for patients who require orthopedic oncological care may yield cost savings with noninferior clinical outcomes vs. in-office visits, according to published results.
“Patients with oncologic diagnoses already face greater travel and time-based costs associated with their treatment due to the complexity of their multidisciplinary care,” Nicholas C. Arpey, MD, from the department of orthopedic surgery at the University of Florida, told Healio. “We feel that telemedicine may be one way to help reduce the financial burden of care for this patient population and hope the results from our study provide support for the continued use of telemedicine in orthopedic oncology, especially at institutions that treat patients from a wide geographical distribution like ours.”
Arpey and colleagues analyzed data from 308 patients (mean age, 51.3 years) who used telehealth for 528 orthopedic oncology appointments between May 2020 and August 2023. According to the study, the most common reason for evaluation was a benign soft tissue tumor.
Arpey and colleagues compared cost savings and clinical outcomes between patients who used telehealth and patients who had in-office visits. Cost savings were calculated based on travel distance to the clinic and lost productivity.
Compared with an in-office visit, mean estimated cost savings for each telehealth visit was $475.20 for patients younger than 65 years and $206.80 for patients older than 65 years. Arpey and colleagues found 4.5% of patients (n = 14) had an unexpected in-office visit after their telehealth appointment and 5.5% of patients (n = 17) had a complication.
“All patients with concern for local recurrence or a developing infection were promptly seen in the clinic, so any delay in diagnosis and treatment was unlikely to be clinically significant,” Arpey and colleagues wrote in the study. “To our knowledge, no complication was missed because of telemedicine.”
Arpey and colleagues noted patients with malignant tumors had increased rates of complications and unexpected in-person visits vs. patients with other diagnoses.
“Orthopedic oncologists using telemedicine as part of their practice should take care when offering it to patients with malignant bone and soft tissue tumors given their higher risk for local recurrence and infection,” they concluded.
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