The group chose to focus initially on video visits for those in need of mental health care. We succeeded in step one: we surveyed 16 mental health provider organizations to find out what data they were collecting, and how success was being measured in 2020. The organizations ranged from large university medical centers to private practices in nine states. Not surprisingly, the data and metrics varied widely, even across large university-based systems.
In the early days of the Covid pandemic, Dianne Connery realized something needed to be done for people in her rural Texas community to help connect folks to their medical appointments.
Connery, director of the Pottsboro Area Library in Pottsboro, Texas, said it started when one woman with pulmonary disease came to the library for help, desperate to meet with her doctor but too high risk to come to his office—a two-hour drive south to Dallas.
It’s the start of Telehealth Awareness Week, and Ann Mond Johnson, American Telemedicine Association CEO, is beaming as she reflects on the growth of this second annual event.
“The number of endorsing partners for this second Telehealth Awareness Week has doubled (since the first),” Mond Johnson says, adding that the first had 25 endorsing partners, and this year’s has grown to 50, including organizations like Easter Seals, and the Association of American Medical Colleges. “To us, this means the messages that telehealth is important, needed, and accepted are being heard.”
For decades, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), only permitted telehealth in particular geographic settings with numerous restrictions surrounding originating sites, providers, services, modality, and access options. However, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a Public Health Emergency (PHE) that relaxed these restrictions and opened the doors to the use of telehealth in the home, among other measures, which have contributed to Medicare beneficiaries utilizing telehealth in droves with an increase from 840,000 in 2019 to 52.7 million in 2020.
In April 2017 Summit Healthcare started a multi-disciplinary program to treat patients with chronic and acute pain in the White Mountains of Arizona. Our patient service area is HRSA-designated as having a shortage of providers and medically underserved. The area is the size of Rhode Island and includes Native American reservations and other vulnerable populations. Many of our patients live in a high poverty area which makes access to care challenging.