Hello NTNC Nurses,

Thought the following information about telehealth education and resources may be of interest!

Have a wonderful Holiday Weekend be sure and take time for yourself!

Diana Fortune BSN RN

NTCA TB Nurse Consultant

November 24, 2021

Top Telehealth News

A Snapshot of Telehealth Payment Policies Across States

Source: mHealth Intelligence
Telehealth policies vary from state to state but in the past few months there have been some common regulation changes across the country [...]

Telehealth should be lasting care mode, not a temporary measure

Source: American Medical Association
Prior to COVID-19, some of the patients seeing dermatologist Jack Resneck Jr., MD, had to drive several hours to his practice to get care for [...]

3 Ways Telehealth Can Improve Medical Care in Rural America

Source: AARP
If you’ve recently Zoomed in to a doctor’s appointment or conferenced into a counseling session, you’re in good company. The use of telehealth has surged during the coronavirus pandemic — especially at its start when doctors’ offices and health clinics suspended in-person appointments and subbed in a more socially distanced solution.

Broadband is the Achilles' heel of telehealth

Source: Healthcare IT News
Six years ago I had a stroke and telehealth saved my life. Make no mistake, I am a believer! However, as wonderful as telehealth is, it has a serious Achilles' heel. The fate of telehealth adoption is tied to the fate of broadband adoption. Some folks believe telehealth applications take up very little space on patients' computers, so how can broadband be an Achilles' heel? Let me count the ways.

Rural Health People 2030 Survey

The Southwest Rural Health Research Center at Texas A&M University with funding support from the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy is conducting a survey as part of Rural Healthy People 2030 – a project designed to understand the most important health priorities for rural Americans. For this survey, we are asking rural health stakeholders – individuals who work in roles aimed at improving the lives and health of rural Americans – to participate by completing the survey. We would love to ensure that the voices of those working in telehealth are heard. Please let us know if you would be willing to disseminate the survey to your rural constituents to complete. The study should take about 20 minutes. If you have any questions about this study, please feel free to reach out to Timothy Callaghan at callaghan@tamu.edu.

TAKE SURVEY

Upcoming Events!

TTAC Telehealth Technology Showcase

Don’t miss the National Virtual Technology Showcase February 2nd and 3rd! Register today to learn how we’re building tomorrow’s virtual healthcare with today’s technology. Register here: http://eepurl.com/hK0a09

2022 MATRC Telehealth Summit

The Mid-Atlantic Telehealth Resource Center (MATRC) will be hosting their annual Telehealth Summit on April 24-26, 2022. For more information and to register, visit MATRCsummit.org.

REGISTER HERE

NRTRC 2022 Annual Conference

SAVE THE DATE! The Northwest Regional Telehealth Resource Center (NRTRC) will be holding their Annual Conference, Innovation in Telehealth, on September 26-28, 2022 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Telehealth Success Stories

The Telehealth Resource Centers are excited to share stories from those who are successfully using telehealth to treat patients and promote the advancement of digitized care.

From the Heartland Telehealth Resource Center (HTRC)

The Heartland Telehealth Resource Center received a request for technical assistance from Shelley Cooper, an individual who has a start-up mHealth company. She has received interest from urban FQHCs about using her product as they work to improve their UDS quality measures and other information about FQHCs and federal and state billing rules and policies that impact the adoption of her software solution. We previously met with Dr. Cooper when she was beginning development of her software to provide technical assistance and this was a follow-up meeting. We discussed public resources, including where to find the UDS manual and FQHC UDS data that would be useful for her work adapting the tool to meet FQHC needs.

Dr. Cooper participates in a foundation-funded initiative in the Kansas City metropolitan area focused on making Kansas City a hub for digital health-related technology and initiatives. HTRC participates in the monthly meetings of this collaborative effort and often presents on its activities or areas of interest for participants in the field of telehealth and mHealth. She reached out to the HTRC early on in the development of her startup software for technical assistance. She recently received two national awards for her technology, and we held a follow-up meeting to discuss her accomplishments and the further development of her software since our last discussion a year ago when the need for additional technical assistance particularly to FQHCs was identified.

We followed up with Dr. Cooper after she had met with the two FQHCs in Kansas City adopting her technology. We also identified her story as a woman and a person of color in the IT/Software field as particularly interest to the HTRC audience, so developed a Telehealth Beat newsletter story and interviewed her for our Telehealth Unmuted podcast episode #4 to discuss her experience and her move from working in a large health system to moving into entrepreneurship.

While TRCs work specifically in the field of telehealth, mHealth including software and other approaches to meeting health care needs are an important area of development. In addition, solutions that work to improve access and the delivery of care for organizations like FQHCs that serve underserved populations is an important area that may not receive sufficient interest from for-profit and other companies developing software and other telehealth and mHealth solutions. HTRC is proud of its work supporting an entrepreneur who has worked throughout her career with underserved populations and is focused on developing tools to assist in increasing access to care and improving health outcomes and quality on important chronic care and preventive measures.

New Resources from the TRCs!

FQHC Telehealth Resources

Created by NCTRC

The TRCs have gathered resources specific to Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs). Under the National Consortium of Telehealth Resource Centers (NCTRC), these resources have been gathered into a new collection specific to FQHCs. Example resources include a Critical Access Hospital Telehealth Guide and a webinar on Telehealth Essentials for FQHCs.

VIEW THE FULL COLLECTION

Final Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) CY 2022 Factsheet

Created by CCHP

CMS recently released their final Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) for CY 2022. The PFS are the policies that the agency will be implementing for Medicare beginning on January 1, 2022, unless otherwise noted. This is the typical vehicle utilized by CMS to make administrative changes to telehealth policy in the Medicare program. This CCHP produced fact sheet reviews the telehealth related items that CMS has decided to finalize for CY 2022.

Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule Webinar
Created by HTRC

Richelle Marting, JD, MHSA, is a lawyer and billing/coding expert who works with the HTRC to present webinars on timely billing, coding and policy topics. Her latest webinar discussed the long-anticipated 2022 Final Physician Fee Schedule. It doesn’t just establish payment rates, it also introduces several new categories of telehealth services, defines rules for telehealth after the Public Health Emergency ends, and impacts documentation and payment for professionals in about every setting of care and every discipline. This session recording will discuss changes that take effect January 2022 and beyond under this final rule. View now: https://youtu.be/OGXYF4SyWzU

Telehealth 201 Video Series
Created by CCHP

New to telehealth? Then this video series is just for you! Navigating the telehealth policy landscape can oftentimes feel overwhelming and quite complicated. This is why we’ve created a series of short explainer videos to accompany the beginner Telehealth 101 series that launched earlier this fall. This new Telehealth 201 series, created by the Center for Connected Health Policy (CCHP), is designed to help provide a deeper understanding on how telehealth policy affects us - boots on the ground! …stay tuned for future videos in this series. Telehealth 301, will be coming to you soon!

Tech Talks with the TRCs
Created by TTAC

The Telehealth Technology Assessment Resource Center (TTAC) developed a new video series, Tech Talks with the TRCs. This series features short videos on telemedicine topics provided by our colleagues in the National Consortium of Telehealth Resource Centers. Check out each of the videos below!

Telehealth Unmuted
Created by HTRC

HTRC’s premiere podcast, Telehealth Unmuted, released a new episode!
Episode 4 features Dr. Cooper, CEO and Founder of Diversity Telehealth, a company providing consulting, installation support and training across a variety of technologies and systems to deliver virtual medical, health and education services to all communities, helping to bridge the healthcare disparity gap. She is also the Founder and CEO of SureShow and the Come On Now app, a tool that helps clinics avoid lost revenue by replacing no show visits with telehealth appointments, thus increasing continuity of care. On the podcast, she shares her story and insight into the power of telehealth, barriers it faces, and how we can harness its power to support under-served communities. Listen HERE on Spotify!

Check out the full list of episodes HERE on Spotify.

The NCTRC Webinar Series

Our webinar series provides informative and educational material on all things telehealth related. Subscribe to our YouTube channel here.

The NCTRC hosts an educational webinar every 3rd Thursday of the month from 11 AM - 12 PM PT.

UPCOMING WEBINAR INFORMATION

Webinar Topic: Telehealth Policy Update: What Has Happened and What to Look for in 2022
Hosting TRC: Center for Connected Health Policy (CCHP)
When: January 20, 2022 11 AM - 12 PM PT

REGISTER HERE

PREVIOUS WEBINARS

November 18, 2021
Toddler Tracks Online Autism Resources
View the Recording

October 14, 2021
Ransomware in Health
View the Recording

September 16, 2021
Telehealth Implementation: A Guide & Case Study for Critical Access Hospitals
View the Recording

Need assistance? TRCs across the nation are equipped to provide technical assistance, education, and resources on various topics. The NCTRC is here for you! Submit your question using our contact us page or email us at nctrc@cchpca.org.

CONTACT US

The National Consortium of Telehealth Resource Centers (NCTRC) is an affiliation of the 14 Telehealth Resource Centers funded individually through cooperative agreements from the Health Resources & Services Administration, Office for the Advancement of Telehealth. The goal of the NCTRC is to increase the consistency, efficiency, and impact of federally funded telehealth technical assistance services. This announcement was made possible by 14 Telehealth Resource Centers and administered through grant #G22RH30365 from the Office for the Advancement of Telehealth, Federal Office of Rural Health Policy, Health Resources and Services Administration, Department of Health and Human Services.

Our mailing address is:
P.O. Box 981655
West Sacramento, CA 95798

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Contact Us
nctrc @cchpca.org