Telehealth & Medicaid: A Fall 2021 Policy Webinar Series & Summary

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an increase in telehealth usage, resulting in many temporary telehealth policy changes on the federal and state level. PHI’s Center for Connected Health Policy’s Medicaid & Telehealth: A Policy Webinar Series focused on topics such as audio-only, policies that have been made permanent, and the Medicaid program’s reasoning for those decisions.

Listen to the recordings to learn from high-level experts and administrators representing 7 different Medicaid agencies or other state offices (Arizona, Colorado, Kentucky, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont). 

Speakers discussed the unique approaches they took to crafting and deciding on what telehealth policies to implement and how COVID-19 has impacted recent decisions. Among some of the highlights from this four-week series:

• The thought and efforts state programs had put in to developing policies to meet the needs of their enrollees.
• The different approaches to gathering data to help inform policy changes.
• The steps states have taken toward ensuring people with disabilities are able to access services via telehealth.

Throughout the series, speakers emphasized that telehealth does indeed benefit patients. While states may have taken different approaches and crafted different policies, they all acknowledged the benefit of ensuring telehealth was available in some capacity for their communities to access.

Access the recordings of the webinar series

Telehealth & Medicaid: Medicaid & Audio Only

September 17, 2021

Policymakers on the federal and state level continue to decide which of the temporary telehealth policies to keep after the public health emergency is over. This webinar focuses on the permanent telehealth policy changes Medicaid programs have made and what went into those decisions. See additional resources from the webinar.

Telehealth & Medicaid – Medicaid Telehealth Policy & Data, Evaluations, & Stakeholders

September 24

COVID-19 has spurred Medicaid programs to expand their telehealth policies. It has also encouraged them to examine the effects and impacts of such policies and engaging stakeholders more often than before. Learn about the efforts some Medicaid programs have made in collecting data and working with other groups as they work on solidifying the next steps in their telehealth policy development. See additional resources from the webinar.

Telehealth & Medicaid – Telehealth & Patients with Disabilities

October 1

As telehealth became more widely utilized during COVID-19, it became clear that some segments of the population may be left behind due to inability to access the technology. One segment of the population, patients with disabilities, may have encountered unique barriers to accessing care through telehealth. This webinar focuses on what Medicaid programs and other state agencies have done to help ensure people with disabilities can utilize telehealth. See additional resources.

Telehealth & Medicaid – Medicaid Telehealth Permanent Policies

October 8

Policymakers on the federal and state level continue to decide which of the temporary telehealth policies to keep after the public health emergency is over. This webinar explores the permanent telehealth policy changes Medicaid programs have made and what went into those decisions. See additional resources.

The Center for Connected Health Policy (CCHP) has also issued a summary report of the Fall series. To watch recordings of webinars held within the Winter and Spring Medicaid and Telehealth webinar series, visit CCHP’s webinars page or read the respective summary reports of the earlier series, Winter and Spring on CCHP’s reports page.

VIEW THE REPORT

Originally published by Center for Connected Health Policy