Telehealth on hold: the silver lining of the COVID-19 pandemic

By now it’s no secret that telehealth services expanded greatly when people had lockdown or shelter-in-place orders in the COVID-19 pandemic. Kyle Zebley is senior vice president, public policy, of the American Telemedicine Association, and executive director of ATA Action, its advocacy affiliate, offers a brief refresher on the historic effects of the pandemic and the growth of telemedicine in the last five years.

Medical Economics: How would you explain or describe the evolution of telehealth in the last five years, both in Medicare and private insurance and, as much as we hate to think about it, the COVID-19 pandemic?

Kyle Zebley: The COVID-19 pandemic was absolutely transformative for our telehealth community and for the whole concept of telehealth, digital health and virtual care. In particular, the level of uptake, the level of Americans that were receiving care in this clinically appropriate manner, in a way that could be done through the use and advent of advancements in technology, it really hadn't existed much prior to the onset of the pandemic, 5 1/2 years ago. After the pandemic came and after a set of policies at the federal level, at the state level, encourage adoption the unique dynamics of the pandemic, the encouragement to keep people at home, if at all possible, particularly in the early days of the pandemic, and the instinct to try to lessen pressure and alleviate concerns around capacity in our health care system and the brick and mortar centers of health care delivery — it all led to this dynamic that has vastly expanded the scope, breadth, reach, access to, of telehealth. That's a great thing. It's unfortunate that that it took something as devastating as a global pandemic, once-in-a-century, pandemic, made it unfortunate, but this was a silver lining of the pandemic. And on a bipartisan basis, starting with President Trump's first administration, through to the Biden-Harris administration, up now, until, unfortunately, just a few days ago, the COVID-19 era telehealth Medicare flexibilities and the Acute Hospital Care at Home program had been maintained uninterrupted. This is a very unfortunate interruption of the continuity of those programs that have been in place on that bipartisan basis, like I mentioned.