The HHS Office of Inspector General urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to evaluate how the use of telehealth affected the quality of home healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a Oct. 18 report to the Department of Health and Human Service, the OIG surveyed 400 home health agencies in the fall of 2021 about their experiences during the pandemic.
Six things it found:
- Among the challenges some home health agencies faced with telehealth during the pandemic were access to phone service, internet and equipment, assessing patients with the remote technology, and lack of reimbursement.
- Rural agencies had a harder time with telehealth, with most pointing to insufficient internet as an obstacle.
- Among all the agencies that used telehealth during the pandemic, 43 percent anticipated they would not use it afterward, while 57 percent said they would.
- The report noted that CMS lacks insight into how home health agencies use telehealth due to limited reporting requirements.
- As a result, the agency is recommending CMS collaborate with the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response's Technical Resources Assistance Center to apply what it learned during the public health emergency to update or develop emergency preparedness training for home health agencies on future infectious disease outbreaks.
- CMS has agreed with the recommendations.