Virtual care news, trends and reimbursement updates
Telehealth news covering program growth, utilization and payment. Becker's tracks telehealth reimbursement policy at the federal and state level and how virtual care fits into health system strategy.
Telehealth
The Federal Communications Commission is increasing funding by $197.98 million for its rural healthcare program this year, it said in a June 30 news release.
Duluth, Minn.-based Essentia Health this month received Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota's Trailblazer Award for its efforts to improve virtual care access during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Google, Ascension and Johns Hopkins Health System are among 340 stakeholders that signed a June 29 letter urging Congress to make permanent the telehealth expansions granted during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Telehealth has experienced unprecedented growth as the COVID-19 pandemic forced healthcare providers globally to reimagine the way they treat patients. Before the pandemic, policy barriers inhibited the widespread use of telehealth, but a relaxation of those policies at the start…
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While telehealth has proved essential to reduce the spread of COVID-19 among both patients and providers, virtual care initiatives are failing to reach certain rural hospital patients.
While still higher than pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels, telemedicine visits have begun to steadily decline across the U.S. since peaking in mid-April, according to a June 25 Commonwealth Fund report.
While it has emerged as a lifeline for patient care across the U.S. during the pandemic, telemedicine cannot capture the patient-physician interactions and personal contact in-person visits deliver, according to Marcin Chwistek, MD.
Most gastroenterology and hepatology patients and their physicians have favored telemedicine visits during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a recent Penn Medicine survey.
When CMS issued sweeping regulatory changes on March 30 to address COVID-19 patient surge, Cleveland Clinic assembled a team of IT, coding and billing experts to help translate the new telehealth policies and waivers into clinician-friendly electronic workflows.
Ten health insurers in Oregon including Kaiser Permanente and Providence have committed to extending telehealth coverage for a broad range of services through the end of the year, KKLC reports.