{"id":79244,"date":"2020-09-29T10:41:03","date_gmt":"2020-09-29T14:41:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/decisionresourcesgroup.com\/?p=79244"},"modified":"2020-09-29T10:41:03","modified_gmt":"2020-09-29T14:41:03","slug":"telehealth-stay-unprecedented-times-drive-innovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/life-sciences-healthcare\/blog\/telehealth-stay-unprecedented-times-drive-innovation\/","title":{"rendered":"Telehealth here to stay as unprecedented times drive innovation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The COVID-19 pandemic is\u00a0<\/em>fundamentally changing healthcare delivery\u00a0in the United States. Clarivate market access expert Valerie Pillo discusses <\/em>where the telehealth market is heading post-pandemic.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Telehealth has played a critical role in healthcare delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic, advancing its capabilities years ahead of its expected trajectory. It will likely become an integral part of a patient\u2019s journey as the industry finds its new normal.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Providers, patients are calling for continued coverage, reimbursement parity<\/h3>\n

On August 3, 2020, citing the benefit and unprecedented expansion of telehealth,\u00a0President Trump<\/a>\u00a0signed an executive order proposing to expand telehealth permanently for Medicare beneficiaries beyond the COVID-19 pandemic and increase access to care in rural areas. During the public health emergency, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid added 135 services that would be paid for under telehealth.<\/p>\n

Federal and state action will be needed to incentivize providers to continue telehealth usage and remote patient monitoring programs. One incentive could be including a telehealth program in MACRA\u2019s Quality Payment Program, the federal physician payment model, under the MIPS Improvement Activity metric, which would require telehealth for all APM participants (Carrie Nixon Law Group, June 15, 2020<\/a>).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Telehealth capabilities accelerated<\/h3>\n

Andrei Zimiles, co-founder and chief executive officer of Doctor.com, said in July 2020 that the industry has accelerated telehealth 10 years in just six months (Crain\u2019s New York panel discussion on \u201cHow Telemedicine is Transforming Health Care<\/a> The focus now is on improving technology and integrating telehealth into a healthcare ecosystem. He cited that the number of physicians offering telehealth nearly doubled since last year.<\/p>\n

A recent Clarivate survey found 80% of U.S. physicians surveyed in June and July reported having conducted a virtual patient consultation in the past three months (Re-Taking the Pulse\u00ae U.S. 2020<\/a>). That was up from 39% of physicians surveyed in late March and April, and just 9% of those surveyed in early March.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Regional IDNs with large, aligned physician bases and telehealth capabilities saw virtual visits increase dramatically as the pandemic set in. Northwell Health, New York City\u2019s largest IDN, treated more COVID-19 patients than any other health system in the nation between March and June: 55,000 overall, including approximately 17,000 hospitalized patients. Northwell, working with national telehealth provider Amwell, saw virtual visits go from a few hundred per day to more than 5,000 daily<\/a>. The Cleveland Clinic saw 58,000 virtual visits in all of 2019; the IDN had more than 200,000 virtual visits in April 2020 alone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What\u2019s next for telehealth?<\/h3>\n

\u201cWe need to meet our patients where they are, home, phone, computer, extended hours,\u201d Geraldine McGinty, MD, chief strategy officer and chief contracting officer at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City said during the Crain\u2019s New York How Telemedicine is Transforming Health Care<\/a> panel in July 2020. \u201cWe can now take our specialized providers and make them accessible to people \u2013 there is some real opportunity there. But how can we get this innovation and technology to all of our patients? Where does it add value? We don\u2019t want to overuse the service. What is meaningful to patients and where do we see it tie into positive outcomes for patients?\u201d<\/p>\n

These are important questions yet to be answered. While technology and devices are advancing quickly to address reimbursement parity and regulation changes, access to telehealth remains a significant challenge for residents without internet access or technology skills, and those unable to \u00a0understand or hear the physician due to language barriers or ability differences. Physicians without the financing or capabilities to provide telehealth will lag behind and may look to other groups for backing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s quite remarkable what\u2019s happened in the last six months,\u201d Zimiles said during the same Crain\u2019s New York panel. In addition to extensive patient care, telemedicine is being used as growth opportunities to garner new patients, provide second opinions and in marketing campaigns in geographies not targeted before.<\/p>\n

Key takeaway:<\/strong>\u00a0As the industry applies lessons learned from COVID-19 to healthcare delivery, look for the patient journey to begin and continue online through innovative telehealth technology. Expect IDNs and physicians to adapt to this model by providing care and securing revenues in multiple care settings, including in-person and online.<\/p>\n

In order for healthcare delivery to continue its fast-paced evolution forced by COVID-19, the federal government will need to make regulatory and reimbursement changes, specifically for telehealth.\u00a0In the meantime, look for industry leaders to continue to develop creative ways to utilize telehealth to ensure patients have access to care wherever they are.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Learn more about Clarivate U.S. market access solutions <\/strong>here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The COVID-19 pandemic is\u00a0fundamentally changing healthcare delivery\u00a0in the United States. Clarivate market access expert Valerie Pillo discusses where the telehealth market is heading post-pandemic.   Telehealth has played a critical…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":266546,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_type":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,276,21,23],"tags":[280,118,90],"class_list":["post-79244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biopharma","category-hospitals-and-healthcare","category-life-sciences-healthcare","category-medtech","tag-covid-19","tag-digital-health","tag-market-access","clarivate-product-biopharma","clarivate-product-hospital-healthcare-provider","clarivate-product-medtech"],"acf":[],"lang":"en","translations":{"en":79244},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"pll_sync_post":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/life-sciences-healthcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/life-sciences-healthcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/life-sciences-healthcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/life-sciences-healthcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/life-sciences-healthcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/life-sciences-healthcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/life-sciences-healthcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/life-sciences-healthcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/life-sciences-healthcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clarivate.com\/life-sciences-healthcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}