Open AccessMedicare Telehealth Pre and Post-COVID-19
Author(s) -
Sophia Albanese,
Amar Gupta,
Ilina Shah,
Joanna Mitri
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
telehealth and medicine today
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2471-6960
DOI - 10.30953/tmt.v6.299
Subject(s) - telehealth , reimbursement , licensure , business , telemedicine , pandemic , covid-19 , health care , quality (philosophy) , service (business) , actuarial science , medicine , nursing , marketing , economics , economic growth , philosophy , disease , epistemology , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty)
The COVID-19 pandemic led to temporary relaxations for telehealth with respect to physician licensure, geographic location, and eligible sites for reimbursement. Earlier policies had impacted the rate of adoption of telehealth and retarded the ability to derive full benefits related to cost, access to care, and quality of care. This aspect is analyzed using 2018 Medicare fee-for-service codes and rates for 10 telemedicine services. Based on the analysis of these data, additional research, and literature review, this report describes how interstate practices can be better leveraged to achieve maximum potential for direct and indirect savings that can accrue through such pragmatic approaches for certain services. The interstate collaborations proposed in this report provide examples of broader telehealth policies that could foster increasing access to quality health care for Medicare beneficiaries and can potentially be used as insight to assist federal and state agencies as they review the continuation, cessation, or modifications of relaxations granted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.