Morning Consult: On-Demand Telehealth Is Booming Even as a Fierce Competitor Remains: the Doctor’s Office A new Morning Consult polling indicates that for now, most adults who use telehealth are sticking with virtual care from their doctors over on-demand services. “People are using their own doctors, and there aren’t these fly-by-night operations setting up to [...]
R Street Institute: An Analysis of State and Federal Telehealth Reforms During and Beyond Covid-19 R Street Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, public policy research organization issued a report of the changing trends in telehealth policies during the pandemic and recommends solidifying flexibilities related to audio-only telemedicine services, store-and-forward data services and medical licensure. This report echoes [...]
JAMA: Analysis of Clinician and Patient Factors and Completion of Telemedicine Appointments Using Video – A new research article published by JAMA Network Open, examines the results of a quality improvement study of more than 130,000 scheduled video visits at an academic health system between March 1 and Dec. 31, 2020. Patient characteristics including older age [...]
Center for Connected Health Policy: State Telehealth Laws and Reimbursement Policies – At a Glance (Fall 2021) The Center for Connected Health Policy (CCHP) released its fall 2021 State Telehealth Laws and Reimbursement Policies At a Glance document, which highlighted several trends in telehealth at the state level over the last several months. All 50 [...]
National Institutes of Health: Comparing efficacy of telehealth to in-person mental health care in intensive-treatment-seeking adults Findings from a recent study of patients receiving intensive psychological treatment pre-COVID-19, suggest telehealth as a viable care alternative with no significant differences between in-person and telehealth groups in depressive symptom reduction, and significant increases in self-reported quality of [...]
American College of Rheumatology: Race, Age, Sex and Language Affected Telemedicine Use by Rheumatology Clinic Patients During COVID-19 Pandemic New research presented at ACR Convergence, the American College of Rheumatology’s annual meeting, shows a significant lack of fairness among telemedicine and electronic patient portals used by rheumatology clinic patients based on their race, age, sex and [...]
Springer Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research: The Impact of the Covid-19-Related Transition to Telehealth on Visit Adherence in Mental Health Care: An Interrupted Time Series Study This study examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic flexibilities on visit adherence for mental health services in an integrated behavioral health department [...]
NIH National Library of Medicine: Telemedicine and visit completion among people with HIV during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to pre-pandemic Telemedicine significantly improved HIV visit completion among groups with low pre-pandemic engagement, including for patients age 20-39, women, and Black patients.
American Journal of Managed Care: Telemedicine Catches On: Changes in the Utilization of Telemedicine Services During the COVID-19 Pandemic A retrospective study of health insurance claims for telemedicine visits pre-pandemic to post-pandemic determined telemedicine increased rapidly, and a greater proportion of telemedicine users were older, had Medicare Advantage insurance plans, had existing chronic conditions, or [...]
Medicaid OIG Reports – To-date, OIG has released parts 1 and 2 of a three-part report on tele-behavioral health and Medicaid. Below we summarize the key findings, particularly noting successful findings on access and cost. HHS OIG currently has eight different national audits, evaluations and inspections of telemedicine services under the Medicare and Medicaid programs – [...]