Telehealth News and Market Developments
The Hill: Make Medicare and Medicaid telehealth coverage permanent (6/11) – Lyndon Haviland, a scholar at the CUNY School of Public Health and Health Policy issued an op-ed in The Hill calls for permanent Medicare and Medicaid coverage of telehealth visits. “Nowhere has the need for more accessible forms of medical treatment been greater than in the field of mental and behavioral health…. Continuing Medicare and Medicaid coverage for telehealth visits is smart policy,” he said.
American Medical Association: Telehealth advances, mental health focus are changes worth keeping (6/11) – AMA President Susan R. Bailey penned an op-ed remarking that “returning to normal shouldn’t include abandoning the health care advancements… These advancements—in telehealth, in stress reduction, in medical education and in renewed attention to public health infrastructure, to name just four areas—can improve the health of our nation,” she said. “Building on the progress we’ve made means returning to a better normal, not just a new one.”
Wall Street Journal: Amazon Has Signed Multiple Companies to Its Telehealth Service (6/9) – Amazon has signed multiple companies to its Amazon Care telehealth service and will need thousands of employees to scale the service. The service begins with a chatbot, then allows for a virtual visit with a health professional. If needed, a mobile medic will visit a user within 60 minutes; the medic is capable of conducting routine tests such as for strep throat, giving vaccinations or even taking blood samples.
mHealth Intelligence: With ER Visits Rising, Payers Pitch mHealth and Telehealth as an Alternative (6/9) – UnitedHealthcare recently announced
that it will be changing how it reviews ED visits for coverage, with a formula that determines whether the reason for the visit qualifies as an emergency. With the pandemic easing, payers are once again moving to reduce unnecessary and costly ER visits, either through value-based care plans that emphasize care management to reduce the chances of a serious health issue or alternative channels of care, like telehealth and mHealth.
Healthcare IT News: Mount Sinai eases translation in 200 languages through its Epic telehealth platform (6/9) – Mount Sinai has integrated Language Line Solutions, Epic and Caregility to deliver telemedicine to its widely diverse patient population.
Inside Health Policy: Brady Doubts Biden’s Telehealth Commitment; Becerra Offers Assurance (6/8) – House Ways & Means ranking Republican Kevin Brady (TX) suggested President Joe Biden’s fiscal 2022 budget ignores a need to continue telehealth coverage after the COVID-19 public health emergency, but HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra told lawmakers Tuesday (June 8) he does not intend to go backwards on such coverage, although the department could use some help from Congress. Brady noted that committee Republicans had said at an earlier hearing in April there is room for bipartisan work to expand telehealth use beyond the pandemic.
Business Insider: Walmart is preparing to provide online healthcare in more than a dozen states, including Ohio and Texas (6/7) – The medical group for Walmart's health centers has quietly filed paperwork to do business in 16 more states, a review of state filings by Insider revealed. A Walmart spokesperson said the filings are related to the retail giant's interest in providing telehealth through the company's pending acquisition of virtual care provider MeMD, which Walmart announced in early May. She said the filings are not for physical Walmart Health clinics.
Bloomberg: Health Firm Backed by Golfer McIlroy Hits $1 Billion Value (6/7) – Virtual health-care startup LetsGetChecked has raised $150 million in new financing to expand its business after seeing a boom in demand for its services during the pandemic. LetsGetChecked lets customers order home-health tests for conditions -- involving sexual health, diabetes, and others -- order medications and receive follow-up care through digital consultations. The company saw 1.7 million patients through the platform in 2020 and revenues grow more than 15-fold from a year ago.
Kaiser Health News: Covid Was a Tipping Point for Telehealth. If Some Have Their Way, Virtual Visits Are Here to Stay. (6/7) – As the COVID crisis wanes and life approaches normal across the U.S., health industry leaders and many patient advocates are pushing Congress and the Biden administration to preserve the pandemic-fueled expansion of telehealth that has transformed how millions of Americans see the doctor. And it represents an emerging consensus that many services that once required an office visit can be provided easily and safely — and often more effectively — through a video chat, a phone call or even an email.
mHealth Intelligence: Georgia Partnership Aims to Use Telehealth to Help the Uninsured (6/7) – Emory University and Giving Health are joining forces to study how the non-profit can expand its telehealth services to help low-income, uninsured people with chronic conditions. “Together, we will identify opportunities for expanding our current program to allow for the diagnosis, treatment, and management of chronic conditions affecting clients who do not have a primary care home and as a result are not accessing the care they need,” Giving Health Executive Director Michael Giglio said in a press release.
|