Operators in small towns are beginning to lean more heavily on telehealth providers to fill gaps in mental health care, citing ease of use and convenience, according to a Kaiser Health News report.
“Telemedicine visits became much more common throughout the American health care system during the pandemic, as guidelines on ‘social distancing’ curtailed in-person appointments and insurers eased restrictions on what they would cover,” the KHN article said. “The number of telehealth visits paid for by Medicare jumped tenfold in the last nine months of 2020 compared with the same period a year before.”
Encounter Telehealth, the mental health provider cited in the article, serves more than 200 nursing homes and assisted living centers, mostly in the Midwest. About 95% of those facilities are in rural areas, said Jen Amis, president of the company, told Kaiser Health News.
The company uses about 20 mental health professionals to complete about 2,000 visits a month. The practitioners read the patients’ electronic medical records through a secure computer system, and they review symptoms and medications with nursing home staff members before each appointment.
Amis told KHN several developments have made her company’s services possible. Electronic medical records and video systems are crucial. And as states have given more independent authority to nurse practitioners and other non-physicians, it has become easier to bill public and private insurance plans for mental health treatment.
“Telehealth, especially in remote locations, has really increased access to care where we otherwise might not have been here,” JoLynn Munro, president at Infinity Rehab, a contract rehabilitation provider which works with nursing homes, told Skilled Nursing News.
Munro said that during the pandemic, CMS loosened restrictions on telehealth, which is likely a lasting impact of the public health emergency.
“So when we think about the PHE waiver ending, the one that was extended through the end of the year, what’s now been uncoupled from the PHE is allowance for telehealth and that’s been a very positive thing for us in our profession,” she said.