Sustaining and Expanding Telehealth: A Survey of Business Models from Selected Prominent U.S. Telehealth Centers.

Introduction: Telehealth centers across the country, including our own center, are addressing sustainability and best practice business models. We undertook this survey to explore the business models being used at other established telehealth centers. In the literature on telehealth and sustainability, there is a paucity of comparative studies as to how successful telehealth centers function.

Methods: In this study, we compared the business models of 10 successful telehealth centers. We conducted the study by interviewing key individuals at the centers, either through teleconference or telephone.

Results: We found that there are five general approaches to sustaining a telehealth center: grants, telehealth network membership fees, income from providing clinical services, per encounter charges, and operating as a cost center. We also found that most centers use more than one approach.

Conclusion: We concluded that, although the first four approaches can contribute to the success of a center, telehealth centers are and should remain cost centers for their respective institutions.