VA Forges Ahead With Expanded Telehealth Access for Veterans
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced on Veterans Day that it aims to amend the Commander John Scott Hannon Veterans Mental Healthcare Improvement Act of 2019 to end all copayment obligations for veterans, greatly expanding a decision earlier this year to waive copayments for a veteran’s first three outpatient mental healthcare visits per year through 2027.
DEA Extends Telemedicine Prescription Waiver One More Year
Healthcare providers will be able to prescribe scheduled drugs via telemedicine for at least one more year, thanks to a last-minute extension of a pandemic-era waiver by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
How a Care Coordination Center Can Improve Care Inefficiencies
The facility will act as a transfer center, with access to real-time data across the health system’s six acute-care hospitals. A team including nurses stationed at the center will be able to coordinate patient transfers both within the health system and from other facilities into the system.
Will Congress Save Telehealth?
Pandemic-era telehealth waivers that allowed providers to expand their virtual care footprint will end this year unless Congress takes action.
Here are the Biggest Workforce Challenges in Nursing in 2024
Nurse leaders have had many challenges to face this year as the nursing shortage continues. CNOs and other healthcare executives have been brainstorming ideas for addressing this shortage as well as disruptors such as AI and virtual care.
Revolutionizing Mental Healthcare Through AI-Enhanced Provider-Patient Relationships
As we stand at the intersection of behavioral health and cutting-edge technology, we must ask ourselves: How can we leverage these tools to not only improve patient outcomes but also strengthen the crucial provider-patient relationship?
Bad Medicine: Healthcare Struggles With Poor Technology
The study, the third in Black Book’s “What’s Hot and What’s Not in Healthcare IT Investments” series, finds that bad IT investments have jumped significantly since 2017, when those costs were estimated at $1.7 billion, and budget limitations are keeping healthcare leaders from correcting those problems.
Are Hospital at Home Programs Forgetting About the Patient?
Fueled by the promise of remote patient monitoring and the acute care at home (or Hospital at Home) strategy, healthcare leaders see the home as a better place than the hospital room for many patients to recover from treatment.
Are RPM Programs Riddled With Fraud?
Following a report this week from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) hinting at a possibility of fraud in requests for Medicare reimbursement in RPM programs, the Alliance for Connected Care has criticized the “inaccuracies and subjective nature” of that report and called on the OIG to retract it.
The Clock is Ticking on Telemedicine Prescriptions
The Alliance for Connected Care is preparing stakeholder letters to the White House and Senate and House leadership urging them to put pressure on the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to extend for two years a pandemic-era waiver allowing providers to use telemedicine. Extending the waiver, currently set to end this year, would give the DEA time to create a long-sought registration process for those prescriptions.