Even before the COVID-19 crisis, there was a
growing recognition of the value of telehealth, among providers, patients, and
other stakeholders. For years, health insurance providers have been committed
to ensuring that telehealth is used to improve affordable access and care for
all patients, regardless of where they live and work. And since the start of
the COVID-19 crisis, health insurance providers have supported federal and
state policy changes to encourage telehealth use and to speed its adoption.
During the COVID-19 crisis, telehealth can
keep patients safe by minimizing in-person visits and contacts with other
patients, and it has improved access to care, especially in rural areas where a
patient can connect with a doctor within seconds, rather than driving long
distances for an office visit. The convenience of telehealth can also alleviate
some of the challenges associated with making an in-person doctor’s
appointment, such as needs for taking time off work or finding child-care.
Telehealth can connect patients with
clinicians across specialties, while ensuring clinically appropriate care is
delivered by high-quality, credentialed providers and upholds privacy
protections that are comparable with in-person visits. Telehealth can be a
cost-effective option for many patients, as virtual visits should not support
bricks and mortar infrastructure.
However, not everyone has the same technology
or digital fluency. Some people may have difficulty finding a safe space at
home or may not have the tools needed to connect with a clinician via
telehealth. This “digital divide”
can create or exacerbate disparities in access by leaving some populations
behind —particularly older Americans, people living in rural communities who
may not have access to broadband Internet, racial and ethnic minorities, and
those with lower socioeconomic status.
That’s why health insurance providers are
working with their provider partners to meet patients where they are and bridge the digital divide to
meet the needs of the communities they serve. Insurance providers have
encouraged patients to use telehealth where it is clinically appropriate,
worked with provider partners to expand virtual networks, and expanded access
to audio-only telehealth.
There have been many policy changes during the
COVID-19 crisis to significantly expand the use of telehealth and other digital
technologies. These policies increased the flexibility in accessing virtual
care, by loosening restrictions on geography, clinician specialty,
and patient location, for example. By making these changes permanent, we
can ensure that telehealth becomes an integral and transformational approach to
patient care. AHIP has developed recommendations on
how to utilize the very real benefits of telehealth to strengthen and improve
care in America for everyone.
Everyone deserves access to affordable,
high-quality care, whether delivered in-person or virtually. Health insurance
providers have taken innovative steps to address the digital divide and ensure
that their members can take full advantage of telehealth to access the care
they need in safe and convenient ways.
Resources
·
AHIP Applauds New House Bill
Focused on Audio-Only Telehealth for Medicare Advantage (3/24/21)
·
How Health Plans Address
the Social Determinants of Health and Promote Access to Telehealth (Bridging
the Digital Divide for Consumers, 11/11/20)
·
Bridging the Digital Divide
for Consumers (11/20)
·
Beyond COVID-19:
Telehealth Solutions to Strengthen and Improve Care Delivery (
7/27/20) Includes PDF entitled, Beyond COVID-19:
Telehealth Solutions to Strengthen and Improve Care Delivery
·
Telehealth Growth During
COVID-19 (7/7/20)
·
We Need Lasting
Telehealth Policy Changes to Protect us Beyond COVID-19 (6/3/20)
·
AHIP Commends CMS for
Expanding Telehealth for Medicare to help Contain COVID-19 (3/18/20)
https://www.ahip.org/using-telehealth-to-deliver-affordable-high-quality-care/
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