Rural telehealth is an important issue for NTCA. Telehealth, however, has always been slowed a bit by three points – patients, physicians, and payments. But when the pandemic came, things began to change. And, this week, both NTCA and White House announced developments for formidable progress that promises a brighter future for rural health.
Rural residents, on average, are older and face higher rates of chronic and acute conditions than their urban counterparts. When combined with distance from specialists and other socioeconomic factors, access to adequate and affordable health care in rural areas can be difficult. Broadband, however, can help shatter these barriers and result in improved health outcomes at lower costs.
NTCA has engaged actively in promoting telehealth, whether through this Smart Rural CommunitySM report, FCC proceedings, or the Virtual Living Room®, which creates no-fee public access points for veterans to use VA telehealth and other online services.
And, yet, various impediments can stand in the way. Patients, particularly older populations, are not always initially comfortable engaging telehealth. Physicians, for various reasons, may be reluctant to transition to online interactions. And both government and private insurance programs must restructure schedules to pay for telehealth. For better or for worse, the COVID 19 pandemic bulldozed many of those concerns.
In March 2020, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) amended Medicare Fee-For-Service (FFS) rules to ease Medicare beneficiaries’ access to healthcare. More than 100 additional services (135, to be exact) were added to the “telehealth eligible” list. This action was especially important at a time when many health care systems curtailed elective procedures and limited in-person visits.
And physicians and patients responded impressively: according to HHS data, in April 2020, 43.5% of Medicare primary care visits were conducted via telehealth, a stunning increase from the previous February in which only 0.1% of primary care visits were via telehealth. Iowa, South Dakota and Oklahoma saw 33% increases in telehealth usage; even Nebraska, which logged the lowest telehealth increase, saw a stunning 22% increase. And the future looks even brighter.
This week, NTCA and the White House, respectively, announced important developments that will help extend telehealth further into rural America.
For our part, NTCA announced a new partnership with Teladoc Health, the global leader in virtual care, to bring behavioral health services to more than 40,000 individuals enrolled in NTCA’s Group Health Program (GHP) medical plans. This is an important development, especially in instances in which onsite treatment centers for substance use disorders or mental health during these challenging times may be limited due to COVID concerns.
And on the other side of the river in Washington, the White House announced the extension of COVID-initiated telehealth measures, as well as a coordinated effort that will include HHS, the FCC, and other Federal agencies to focus on everything from payment schedules to broadband infrastructure that is necessary to support telehealth.
Of course, telehealth relies on broadband. So, there is no doubt that NTCA member networks will play a critical role in advancing these new developments. And that’s a great thing – and just one more reason to be optimistic about broadband helping to build more resilient rural communities.