Our Members
The Alliance for Connected Care aims to:
Demonstrate the importance of Connected Care as a tool for improved quality and efficiency.
Build significant and high-level support for Connected Care among leaders in Congress and the Administration.
Enable more telehealth to support new models of care.
Lift geographic and site restrictions for telehealth in Medicare.
Establish a consensus-based, standardized definition of Connected Care to advance with policymakers.
Alliance News
BMC Psychiatry: Changes in Mental Health Services in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic
BMC Psychiatry: Changes in Mental Health Services in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic A shift to telecommunication technologies had a significant impact on patients and care providers’ experiences of mental health care. This review aimed to identify changes in mental health services for patients in response to the pandemic and understand the impact of the changes on patients and providers. Improvements to care access, flexibility, remote forms of care delivery and lengths of operating service hours emerged as crucial changes, which supported accessibility to mental health services, increased attendance and reduced dropouts from care. Telehealth in mental care could [...]
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): Telemedicine Use Among Physicians by Physician Specialty: United States, 2021
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): Telemedicine Use Among Physicians by Physician Specialty: United States, 2021 A CDC study found that primary care and medical specialists were more likely to be satisfied with telemedicine technology compared with surgical specialists. More medical specialists (27.4 percent) used telemedicine for 50 percent of their patient visits or more than primary care physicians and surgical specialists. Most primary care physicians (76.7 percent) and medical specialists (73.1 percent) were able to provide a similar quality of care during telemedicine visits as in-person visits “to some extent or a great extent” compared with about [...]
Atrium Health: Atrium Health Extends Reach with Virtual Care to Improve Health
Atrium Health: Atrium Health Extends Reach with Virtual Care to Improve Health Atrium Health had a head start on leveraging virtual care tools to streamline care when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. In its report, Atrium detail how they’ve developed more than 30 virtual programs that streamline access to care, reduce wait times and improve the patient experience. These programs have expanded throughout the medical system to hospitals, schools, community clinics, in-home and on-demand services as well as urgent and primary care settings throughout the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama and beyond.
Alliance for Connected Care Opposes Duplicate Coding for Telehealth Services
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) provided a response to our letter. See here for the response from CMS. The Alliance for Connected Care sent a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) regarding the consideration of new telehealth codes as proposed by the American Medical Association (AMA) in 2023. The AMA Relative Value Scale Update (RUC) Committee in May proposed 17-20 new telehealth codes to be considered in the CMS Medicare Telehealth Services List. The Alliance and its members oppose the creation of new telehealth codes that duplicate services already covered by [...]
JAMA Health Forum: Characteristics of Mental Health Specialists Who Shifted Their Practice Entirely to Telemedicine
JAMA Health Forum: Characteristics of Mental Health Specialists Who Shifted Their Practice Entirely to Telemedicine While most mental health specialists have in-person and telemedicine visits, some have transitioned to fully virtual practice, perhaps for greater work-life flexibility (including avoiding commuting) and eliminating expenses of maintaining a physical clinic. This study found that, in 2022, 13.0 percent of mental health specialists serving commercially insured or Medicare Advantage enrollees had shifted to telemedicine only. A virtual-only practice allowing clinicians to work from home may be more attractive to female clinicians, who report spending more time on familial responsibilities, and those facing [...]