Telehealth News and Market Developments
Inside TeleHealth: RUC Meets to Determine Payment for New Telehealth Codes, Addresses Payment Parity (4/28) – The American Medical Association’s payment valuation committee will meet April 26-29 to discuss the 17 newly accepted telehealth evaluation and management CPT codes that will determine the future of telehealth payment and broach the long-standing payment parity debate. The RUC will meet to assess the payment rate of CPT codes and will make payment recommendations to CMS for the CY2024 Physician Fee Schedule proposed rule.
Benefits Pro: Bridging America’s care gap with virtual solutions (4/27) – With the rapid adoption of virtual care, benefits consultants and employers are able to provide a primary care solution to all group sizes, and help clients ensure their employees are receiving care when they need it. Virtual care provides many benefits, including enhanced access to care, cost savings, and convenience. The article quotes a study by the Progressive Policy Institute and Americans for Prosperity (shared on the Alliance for Connected Care website) that shows using virtual care helped decrease patients’ health care costs by 61 percent, for example. The article emphasizes that it is critical for benefit strategies to have virtual care solutions built in for quality health outcomes and meaningful cost savings.
Business Wire: Walmart Health Expands into Oklahoma with Four New Health Centers in 2024 (4/26) – Alliance board member Walmart announced it is opening four new Walmart Health centers in Oklahoma. These facilities will be located beside Walmart Supercenters and will feature Walmart Health’s full suite of health services, including telehealth, primary care, labs, behavioral health services, and other health care services.
mHealth Intelligence: UAB Gets $3.3M to Test Telehealth Cardio Program (4/25) - The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) received a $3.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to test a telehealth cardio program. Researchers intend to operate a 24-week program containing a remote training system to determine the abilities of the program in handling cardiometabolic risk factors through videoconferencing and virtual sign monitoring. Researchers also noted that this study is an extension of a previous effort, however, its concentration shifted toward cardio.
Healthcare IT News: Parkview Health Gets 70 Percent of Patients onto Epic Portal, Home of its Telehealth Programs (4/25) - Parkview Health System has incorporated its telemedicine programs into a larger digital health strategy aimed at meeting patients wherever they have a need for care. The Indiana health system has achieved massive success with its patient engagement and telemedicine initiatives. Maximilian Maile, senior vice president of digital health at Parkview Health System, shares recommendations for other organizations who have to navigate digital health or telemedicine initiatives.
MedCity News: Hint Health Partners With Eden Health To Expand Direct Primary Care Network (4/24) - Hint Health, a digital company focused on direct primary care (DPC), announced it is teaming up with Eden Health, a virtual and in-person primary care provider. Through the partnership, employees of Hint Connect’s employer customers will be able to choose whether they want to receive care from a local DPC provider in their area (either in-person or virtually) or a virtual provider through Eden Health. The choice comes down to each individual employee. Eden Health provides primary care, urgent care, chronic disease management and care coordination services. The collaboration will especially benefit employees who live in remote areas without a DPC provider.
Becker's Hospital Review: Cleveland Clinic Launches Neurological Telehealth Program (4/24) - Cleveland Clinic is launching a neurological telehealth program through a partnership with medtech company Genentech. The partnership aims to facilitate health care delivery for lower socioeconomic status patients and patients living in rural areas. Previously, Cleveland Clinic and Genentech worked on a 2022 research project that studied the utilization of telehealth among 200,000 patients living with a neurological condition. Neurological telehealth care saw an uptick during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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