As the pro bono Chief Administrative Officer of Anchor Health Initiative (AHI), the largest Connecticut health care company serving the primary and specialty needs of the LGBTQ community, I have witnessed firsthand the beneficial impact of telemedicine (also referred to as telehealth) on the lives of our more than 1500 patients.
One of the many things the pandemic has changed is the way people see their doctors. Almost overnight, patients began switching to so-called telehealth visits, a trend that's expected to last.
At least 10 million Medicare beneficiaries have used telehealth since early March, compared with about 13,000 weekly appointments pre-pandemic. Lawmakers and regulators are looking at making some of the current expansions permanent. Among the issues that policymakers would need to address are the cost and quality of remote care, as well as determining which services are appropriate for telemedicine.
On the heels of Teladoc’s landscape-shifting deal to buy Livongo, telemedicine rival MDLive is setting its sights on a public offering early next year, the company’s chief executive officer told STAT.
Widespread usage of telehealth services has been one of the positives to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic. Allowing patients to see their providers and receive care from home has been a game-changer for healthcare, but especially for mental health, according to Dr. Omar Elhaj, senior medical director of LifeStance Midwest and Atlantic regions, which operates PsychBC in Beachwood; Dr. Phil Epstein, a psychologist at Partners for Behavioral Health & Wellness in Beachwood; and Chardé Hollins, behavioral health prevention specialist at the ADAMHS Board of Cuyahoga County in Cleveland.
Despite COVID-19, researchers from the University of Kentucky have continued their work on studying opioid use disorder. Those researchers shared an update on their projects and advocated for permanently expanding some telehealth services during a presentation to the Substance Use Recovery Task Force yesterday.