March 17, 2021
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of telehealth and virtual care was growing, slowly. But since last March, telehealth use has skyrocketed as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) quickly expanded access to telehealth for Medicare beneficiaries, and many private insurers followed suit. Healthcare organizations that had already adopted value-based care models were able to pivot to telehealth more quickly. In this episode of LeverAGE, West Health’s Amy Herr and Michael Kurliand discuss why that’s the case, how the use of virtual care has grown among older patients, what barriers still exist and what healthcare leaders and policymakers should do to remove those barriers and encourage growth in a sustainable way.