Telehealth

On Wednesday, April 13, 2022, The administration renewed the COVID-19 public health emergency, just before the initial April 16 expiration date. This will extend pandemic policies and flexibilities that have made it easier for millions of Americans to access health insurance coverage under Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, access telehealth services, and sign up for health insurance. CMS released guidance giving states 12 months to redetermine eligibility for Medicaid and CHIP, and Congress extended telehealth coverage of Medicare for five months after the emergency ends in the fiscal 2022 omnibus spending bill.

This March 2022 News in Health issue explores various components of rural health in America. The issue explains how geography, access to care, and telehealth impact health outcomes for individuals in living in rural areas, and provides tips for how to build healthier communities.

Health care stakeholders can use this Playbook Collection to understand recent evidence behind telehealth-delivered interventions and learn about practical strategies to support effective implementation of these programs for people with complex needs.

The Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (RERC) on Technologies to Support Aging-In-Place for People with Long-Term Disabilities (TechSAge RERC II) published a new tool titled "Guidelines for delivering telewellness programs to older adults with disabilities." This tool provides guidelines for designing telewellness classes for older adults with disabilities and touches on design elements, such as software selection, safety, class organization and logistics, time structure and more.

The Coverage to Care (C2C) patient resource released earlier this year, Telehealth: What to Know for Your Family, is now available in Arabic, Chinese, Haitian Creole, Korean, Russian, and Vietnamese, as well as English and Spanish. This resource helps patients learn about the types of care they can receive through telehealth, how to prepare for an appointment, and what to expect during a telehealth visit.

CMS released a new supplement to its State Medicaid & CHIP Telehealth Toolkit that provides new examples and insights into lessons learned from states that have implemented telehealth changes. The toolkit includes approaches and tools states can use to communicate with providers on utilizing telehealth. The toolkit includes updates and consolidates the FAQs and resources for states to consider as they begin planning beyond the temporary flexibilities provided in response to the pandemic.

The updated supplemental information is intended to help states strategically think through how they explain and clarify to telehealth providers and other stakeholders which policies are temporary or permanent. It also helps states identify: • Services that can be accessed through telehealth • Which providers may deliver those services • Ways providers may use in order to deliver services through telehealth, • Circumstances under which telehealth can be reimbursed once the PHE expires

This issue brief analyzes COVID-19 related legislative, regulatory, and subregulatory changes to Medicare from January 1, 2020 to July 24, 2020. The brief groups these regulatory changes into nine themes and examines questions regarding the policy changes moving forward. The brief is accompanied by a policy tracker that categorizes all 212 changes based on factors including types of providers and plans affected, effective date, and expected duration.

The latest report in the AARP Public Policy Institute’s Valuing the Invaluable series estimates the economic value of unpaid family caregiving at $470 billion in 2017. The report also explores family caregiving trends, highlights federal and state policy changes since the release of the previous Valuing the Invaluable report in 2015, and offers further policy recommendations to enhance the well-being of caregiving families.

This paper from AARP’s Public Policy Institute discusses the potential implications of the expanded use of telehealth from the lens of older adults and family caregivers. It discusses the hope that telehealth may help address rising healthcare costs, enable older adults to stay in their homes longer, and relieve pressure for family caregivers. It also emphasizes the importance of keeping older adults and their families at the center of telehealth expansion efforts and continuing research.