The country's largest health insurer is putting telemedicine on par with a regular trip to the doctor's office, effectively saying a video visit is as good as brick-and-mortar medicine. UnitedHealthcare today is announcing a partnership with three telemedicine companies to cover video-based doctor visits just as it covers in-person visits. The tech set has for decades predicted that we would one day get our medical care via video chat, but it wasn't until recently that forward-thinking physicians started taking the promise of telemedicine seriously. The decision by so influential a player in the healthcare industry to telemedicine is the strongest sign yet that the technology is entering the mainstream.
