Telehealth Took Off During the Pandemic. Now, Battles Over State Lines and Licensing Threaten Patients ’ Options

Televisits for medical care took off during the worst days of the pandemic, quickly becoming commonplace. Throughout, it’s probably seemed like it doesn’t matter what state the provider of these telehealth services is located. But that’s only because most states, along with the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, temporarily waived rules requiring licensed clinicians to hold a valid license in the state where their patient is located. Now states are rolling back many of those pandemic workarounds—meaning the ability to conduct certain virtual appointments may be nearing an end. Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, for example, recently scrambled to notify more than 1,000 Virginia patients that their telehealth appointments were “no longer feasible,” says Dr. Brian Hasselfeld, medical director of digital health and telemedicine at Johns Hopkins. Virginia is among the states where the emergency orders are expiring or being rolled back. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Only about 17 states still have waivers in effect, according to a tracker maintained by the Alliance for Connected Care, a lobbying group representing insurers, tech companies and pharmacies. As those rules end, “it risks increasing barriers” to care, says Hasselfeld. Johns Hopkins, he adds, hosted more than 1 million televisits, serving more than 330,000 unique patients, since the pandemic began. About 10% of those visits were from states ...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 healthscienceclimate Source Type: news