Minnesota Department of Health (MDH): MDH Study Shows Potential for More Accessible Health Care Through Telehealth A study by MDH highlights the potential for telehealth to make care more accessible while providing similar levels of service to traditional, in-person ways of delivering care. The report, which focus on Minnesotans with private health insurance coverage, [...]
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE): Updated National Survey Trends in Telehealth Utilization and Modality This report updates prior findings on national trends of telehealth use through an analysis using the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey data from April 2021 through August 2022. Compared to earlier periods in the pandemic, [...]
Annals of Internal Medicine: Performance Measures for Physicians Providing Clinical Care Using Telemedicine: A Position Paper From the American College of Physicians The American College of Physicians (ACP) published a policy paper which details new recommendations to ensure that measures developed to gauge telemedicine services are evidence-based, methodologically sound and clinically meaningful. The focus of this paper [...]
JAMA Network: Changes in In-Person, Audio-Only, and Video Visits in California’s Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), 2019-2022 A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that audio-only telehealth continued to be used at higher rates than video visits in safety net clinics in California. Prior to March 2020, FQHCs rarely received reimbursement for [...]
Rock Health: Consumer Adoption of Digital Health in 2022 Rock Health, in collaboration with Stanford Center of Digital Health, released the 2022 Digital Health Consumer Adoption Survey. The survey found that telemedicine reached the 80 percent adoption mark overall, becoming the preferred channel for prescription care and minor illness. In addition, audio-only and [...]
Health Affairs: Many Clinicians Implement Digital Equity Strategies to Treat Opioid Use Disorder Maintaining access to care via telemedicine was critical for treating opioid use disorder (OUD) during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study found that in March 2022, 77 percent of clinician respondents reported implementing digital equity strategies, such as audio-only telehealth, to [...]
Kaiser Family Foundation: Telehealth Delivery of Behavioral Health Care in Medicaid: Findings from a Survey of State Medicaid Programs Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) surveyed state Medicaid officials about policies and trends related to telehealth delivery of behavioral health services. The survey found that states most commonly reported adding audio-only telehealth coverage of behavioral [...]
Epic Research: Telehealth Visits Unlikely to Require In-Person Follow-Up Within 90 Days On December 13, Epic Research released a study on revisit rates from telehealth visits. The study found that telehealth visits were unlikely to require in-person follow-up visits within 90 days. Key Findings In nearly every specialty studied, most patients who had [...]
Health Affairs: Audio-Only Telemedicine In Primary Care: Embraced in the NHS, Second Rate in the U.S. Use of telemedicine in primary care soared in the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and remains well above pre-pandemic levels. In the US, a major enabler of this shift is equal reimbursement across video, audio, and [...]
Health Affairs: New Coding Modifier Offers Opportunity to Investigate Audio-Only Telehealth (11/18) – Prior to the pandemic, Medicaid program coverage of audio-only telehealth services was limited. During the early stages of the pandemic, Medicaid beneficiaries were significantly less likely to complete telehealth visits compared to commercially insured patients. In September 2021, the American Medical [...]