On March 17, 2022, the HHS Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released a new report examining the use of telehealth services in Medicare during the first year of the pandemic, declaring that telehealth was critical during this time period for Medicare beneficiaries. The report also looks at the growth of telehealth services, the types [...]
mHealth Intelligence: Clinicians need new approaches to delivering empathy through telehealth services A new report by Elsevier Health and Ipsos revealed that although a majority (63 percent) of clinicians worldwide expect most of their consultations to be remote within the next decade, 51 percent believe that telehealth will negatively impact their ability to demonstrate empathy with their [...]
KFF: Telehealth Has Played an Outsized Role Meeting Mental Health Needs During the COVID-19 Pandemic A new analysis from Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) and Epic Research found that telehealth visits for outpatient mental health and substance use services went from virtually zero percent in 2019 prior to the COVID-19 pandemic to a peak of 40 [...]
Health Affairs: Legislation Increased Medicare Telestroke Billing, But Underbilling And Erroneous Billing Remain Common A recent study by Health Affairs found that the Furthering Access to Stroke Telemedicine (FAST) Act, which permanently expanded Medicare payment for telemedicine consultations for acute stroke (“telestroke”) from delivery only in rural areas to delivery in both urban and rural [...]
RAND Corporation: Audio-Only Telehealth Remains Common at Safety Net Health Clinics According to a recent RAND Corporation report, rapid adoption of telehealth helped safety net clinics in California to maintain consistent levels of service after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the use of audio-only care has persisted in the clinics longer than in other [...]
mHealth Intelligence: Home-Based Remote Patient Monitoring Yields Highly Accurate BP Readings A study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine found that home-based blood pressure (BP) measurements were more reliable and accurate than those taken in clinics or kiosks. The results of the study showed a high level of accuracy in the systolic BP measurement of [...]
Rheumatology Advisor: Telemedicine Can Enhance Quality of Care for Patients in Rheumatology if Barriers Are Overcome Telemedicine is particularly valuable for people living with rheumatic conditions because these patients are at potentially elevated risk for worse COVID-19 outcomes due to comorbidities and the use of immunosuppressive drugs such as glucocorticoids and biologics that heighten risk [...]
Healthcare Dive: Telehealth use increased amid omicron as 2021 drew to a close According to data from Fair Health, telehealth continued to increase at the end of 2021 amid a surge in COVID-19 cases fueled by the Omicron variant. Telehealth claims measured as a percentage of all medical claims grew more than 11 percent from November to [...]
MedCity News: Amwell exec weighs in on findings of AMA report, best practices for delivering behavioral health care virtually A recent report by the American Medical Association found that digital tools could address behavioral health integration, though not with the intent to replace in-person care. The report highlighted that digital tools could help with screening patients and [...]
American Journal of Managed Care: Digital Technology Could Be Helpful for COPD Management in the Future A recent narrative review published in the Therapeutic Advances in Respiratory Disease journal found that digital technology can be beneficial for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) to learn proper self-management of the disease, such as learning the correct inhaler technique. Telehealth [...]