Diabetes is a disease with no cure and requires continuous monitoring. People with diabetes are required to check their glucose levels, administer insulin, and assess their symptoms on a daily basis. The Pittsburg Post Gazette reports on how Telehealth has enhanced care for people with diabetes.
Understanding How Insurance May Affect Your Telehealth Visit
As telehealth has become increasingly popular many patients are questioning how this may affect their insurance. Insurance in general can be very confusing and with the constant changes caused by covid it has become even more difficult to understand.
How Telehealth Can Increase Physician Satisfaction
The American Medical Association conducted a study of the sources of physician satisfaction and dissatisfaction. One of the main findings was that “physicians spend nearly two hours on EHR/desk work for every hour of direct face time with patients.” EHR should be making physicians' lives easier not harder.
How to Prepare for Telehealth Policy Updates
Healthcare lawyer Andrew Selesnick talks with HealthcareITNews to discuss how providers should prepare for changes in telehealth reimbursements. In early October, The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid announced that they would be adding 11 virtual services to its reimbursement list during the COVID-19 pandemic. This update was in addition to a previously published list of services that could be reimbursed by insurance.
New Bill Provides Medicare Reimbursements For Home Telehealth Providers.
Senator Susan Collins of Maine and Ben Cardin of Maryland have recently introduced a bipartisan bill to provide reimbursements for telehealth services furnished by home healthcare providers during the pandemic. Many home health providers are paying out of their own pockets to provide telehealth services to their patients. The bill will ease up some of the cost of telehealth as audio and video services can be qualified for reimbursements.
Telehealth Uses for Clinical Research
Telehealth is surely evolving and expanding even more due to the pandemic. Many patients and providers relied on telehealth for the past seven months to ensure access to healthcare. Telehealth has not only been crucial to providing care, but it was also used for clinical research purposes. The future hold even more evolvements for telehealth. Many wearables, apps and software are being testing to further expand telehealth into something more revolutionary. However, there are many concerns such reimbursements, internet connectivity, and privacy, that need to be tackled first.
Telehealth Best Practices for Physician Integration
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a rapid expansion of telehealth services, and despite the major change, most physicians have adapted to this transition. “The one thing that we can all say we have achieved at this point is we brought the doctor's office into the home successfully,” said AMA member Joseph Kvedar, and the success of the medical community's teleheath adoption can easily be seen in the positive ways patients have responded. Yet physicians are still searching for ways to make telemedicine more effective into the future, and in a recent American Medical Association Telehealth Initiative virtual boot camp, physicians shared their ideas on how to further improve remote patient care.
Tips for Privacy and Compliance Best Practices
The shift from in person health visits to virtual care happened rapidly come the coronavirus shutdown. With that quickness, many privacy regulations were lifted to make this transition easier for practices. This has created a cause for concern because it has made healthcare practices a target for cyber hacks.
The American Telemedicine Association Comments on Recently Proposed Telehealth Policies
It’s no secret that the coronavirus pandemic has caused many industries to shift to new ways of conducting business. Telehealth has opened doors for doctors and patients to connect from the comfort of their homes, during this time certain restrictions were waived in regards to the provision of telemedicine. It has become evident that Telehealth is here to stay and with the pandemic nearing a vaccine, more restrictions and policies may be put into place regarding telemedicine.
Illinois Healthcare Coalition Wants Permanent Telehealth Support from Lawmakers
The COVID-19 Pandemic has caused an incredible increase in telemedicine support, both from healthcare companies and the government, but how long will this support last? In Illinois, it looks like this support might be here to stay, as a coalition of Illinois healthcare providers and patient advocates has recently written to Illinois lawmakers asking for continued support of telemedicine services.