A key issue facing Congress in its postelection, “lame duck” session is whether to extend regulatory flexibilities expiring at year end that make telehealth services more accessible to Americans. A new study I authored suggests it should proceed with caution.
Telehealth — the use of remote audio or video technologies to provide health-care services — has been promoted as a way to increase patients’ access to care particularly in rural and underserved areas, increase convenience to patients, improve quality, and decrease costs relative to traditional in-person care. But there is little evidence to support these claims.
Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, less than 1 percent of medical services were delivered via telehealth. Various barriers such as limited public and private insurance coverage for telehealth services, inadequate broadband coverage in some areas, and restrictions on the interstate practice of medicine impeded telehealth adoption.
Early in the pandemic, federal and state governments introduced telehealth flexibilities, and insurers relaxed telehealth rules so that patients could access care while in-person services were restricted or unavailable. Some flexibilities ended when the public-health emergency expired in May 2023.
