Post-Pandemic Telehealth Optimization Needs Regulatory Support
Providers anticipate telehealth use will grow after the pandemic. But for these solutions to be optimized and not just utilized, regulations must align, the latest report from Insights found.
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By - Live video conferencing is the most common telehealth technology employed by provider organizations, so post-pandemic telehealth growth is expected for other telehealth modalities like remote patient monitoring and asynchronous telehealth, according to the most recent report from Insights. This can only happen, though, in a supportive regulatory environment.
Telehealth Growth and Development: Telehealth’s Place in the Industry Beyond the Pandemic aimed to understand the current state of telehealth and challenges provider organizations are facing to continue using the technology in a post-COVID world.
Currently, 96 percent of all respondents are leveraging real-time or live telehealth solutions. Only 35 percent have remote patient monitoring solutions, and even fewer (17 percent) have asynchronous telehealth platforms currently in place.
Barriers to optimizing telehealth solutions were robust prior to the pandemic, but many regulatory flexibilities, including equal reimbursement and relaxed HIPAA regulations, allowed use of the technologies to take off.
“We’ve wanted telehealth for quite some time,” a planning and development coordinator for a state department of health said during qualitative follow-up. “The pandemic really helped us focus and find more funds.”
Legislation like the CARES Act and American Rescue Plan opened the funding opportunities for provider organizations to invest in tech infrastructure many had been wanting for a while. Having telehealth capabilities during the pandemic gave providers the ability to maintain patient care while simultaneously keeping patients safe at home.
Now, as the pandemic wanes and the country begins to reopen, many are worried about the fate of telehealth.
“We always questioned if reimbursement would expand telehealth. I don’t think it’s a question anymore,” a director of telecare at an academic medical center noted during follow-up. “COVID-19 relaxed the rules on reimbursement and telehealth took off.”
The continued development, scaling, and optimization of these technologies that proved effective during the pandemic is contingent on supportive regulatory guidelines.
Aside from third-party reimbursement, though, there are several barriers to telehealth’s continued growth, including technological infrastructure, state licensing requirements, and adjusting workflow for provider buy-in are concerns for 45 percent, 33 percent, and 31 percent of all respondents.
Barriers to technological infrastructure can be overcome with supportive funding to improve broadband access and high-speed connectivity in even the most remote areas of the country. And challenges to state licensing requirements can be eliminated with a nation-wide license, supported by 37 percent of all Insights survey respondents.
Once these measures make it easier for patients to access telehealth and providers to practice using the technology, obtaining provider buy-in should be simpler.
The efforts to optimize telehealth will require support from the top down. The pandemic has shown relaxed restrictions and equal reimbursement allow the technology to thrive and meet patient expectations, many of them preferring to use the technology.
No one can argue: telehealth is here to stay. But ensuring the technology is used effectively requires supportive regulations, reimbursement, and infrastructure across the county.
Telehealth Growth and Development: Telehealth’s Place in the Industry Beyond the Pandemic also examines the use of each telehealth modality—real-time, remote patient monitoring, and asynchronous—across provider organizations and dives into barriers of these technologies to meeting patient and provider expectations. The full report can be found here.
