Telehealth now and in the aftermath of COVID-19

Gary Austin kicks off the discussion by asking the panel about the massive increased use of telehealth. Guest Brian Bamberger defines what he means by telehealth and the distinction between telehealth and telemedicine. The panel moved on to address rule changes that make the use of telehealth more accessible to everyone. Bamberger acknowledged that telehealth for a long time was adopted to service patients in more rural areas but that moving forward, telehealth can improve accessibility for at risk, mobility challenged individuals in urban areas as well as capacity is built. There is no reason physicians or patients shouldn't continue conducting more routine visits as virtual visits. Jocelyn shared that her municipality, where she is a government official, has leveraged their first responders to do virtual visits for triage and help disseminate information. In the future, remote monitoring, delivering test results and other routine visits can be done virtually. This practice may increase usage overall and potentially increase the number of preventative visits which can help improve outcomes and for certain, generate more data that would be available for analysis. The panel then discussed how to "productize" telehealth in a fiscally viable way. What's pricing? What technology is needed? Will it help reduce medical loss ratios for payers? How does telehealth fit into value-based care? Bamberger makes that point that telehealth will also be critical for the next epidemic or for the second wave of this one.  The panel then discussed the risk of fraud and ways to monitor and avoid it. Each panel then shared their closing thoughts on impact, action items and strategies payers and providers should take around telehealth.