Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC): March 2025 Report to the Congress: Medicare Payment Policy MedPAC released its mandatory report to Congress on the Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) payment systems, the Medicare Advantage (MA) program, and the Medicare prescription drug program (Medicare Part D). Most notably for telehealth, MedPAC found that for FFS beneficiaries who use [...]
medRxiv: Telehealth and Outpatient Utilization: Trends in Evaluation and Management Visits Among Medicare Fee-For-Service Beneficiaries, 2019-2024 Prior to the pandemic, telehealth accounted for just 0.1% of monthly E&M visits but surged to 41.0% in April 2020 before stabilizing between 5.7% and 7.0% in 2023-2024. The average monthly E&M visit rate per 1,000 FFS beneficiaries [...]
NEJM Catalyst: Community Tele-Paramedicine to Improve Telehealth Access for Underserved Populations NewYork-Presbyterian and the Weill Cornell Medicine Department of Emergency Medicine designed and implemented the Community Tele-Paramedicine program to increase access to robust telehealth services for medically underserved populations and reduce preventable emergency department visits and hospital admissions for patients living with multiple chronic [...]
FAIR Health: Monthly Telehealth Regional Tracker In November 2024, acute respiratory diseases and infections increased in percent of telehealth claim lines in the top five telehealth diagnostic categories nationally and in every region. Hypertension rose from fifth to fourth position in the national top five telehealth diagnostic categories in November, replacing developmental disorders, which fell to [...]
medRxiv: Association Between Telehealth Use and Downstream 30-Day Medicare Spending The objective of this study was to investigate whether healthcare visits initiated by telehealth had higher or lower 30-day spending compared to in-person-initiated visits. The study compared the overall spending, rates of return visits, laboratory tests, and imaging procedures within 30 days for Medicare [...]
Journal of Rural Health: Medicare Telehealth Utilization by Rural Health Clinics and Federally Qualified Health Centers Telehealth use curbed the decline in outpatient visits for all clinic types during the pandemic. Telehealth use declined as the pandemic continued in 2021 yet remained higher than pre-pandemic levels. FQHCs had higher telehealth use than RHCs in [...]
Nature Research Intelligence: Several Virtual Care Studies The Nature Research Intelligence released several topic summaries on virtual care including: Appointment Non-Attendance in Outpatient Health Care Settings – This summary reviewed the impact of telehealth on appointment adherence and found telehealth showed promise in reducing no-show rates. Tele-Audiology and Hearing Healthcare During the COVID-19 Pandemic [...]
Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare: Effect of Telemental Health Adoption on Mental Health Services Utilization in Federally Qualified Health Centers This study assessed the effect of telemental health services (TMHS) on mental health services utilization in FQHCs, comparing centers with and without TMHS and examined differences in TMHS effect between FQHCs that adopted TMHS [...]
Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC): Maximizing the Value of Remote Patient Monitoring The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) released a health explainer, which offered evidence-based strategies to maximize the value of remote patient monitoring, a digital service that transmits patients’ at-home data to health care providers. The explainer recommends policymakers to focus on four key areas: [...]
ASPE: Use of Medicare-Covered Telerehabilitation for PT/OT/SLP Services during the COVID-19 PHE ASPE released a study, which examined the extent therapist practices and nursing homes adopted telehealth services for physical therapy (PT), occupational therapy (OT), and speech-language pathology (SLP); explored the major challenges and facilitators in adopting telerehabilitation services, and whether these services were [...]