Future of Health Summit 2020

Realizing the Promise of Telehealth During the Pandemic and Beyond

Telehealth services, long viewed as a critical tool for increasing quality and access to care across populations and settings, has experienced a dramatic increase in use during the COVID-19 pandemic. Driven by necessity and emergency regulatory change, nearly 1.7 million Medicare beneficiaries received telehealth services in a single week in April 2020, up from 13,000 before COVID-19, and private insurers reported a 4,347 percent increase in telehealth claims. Efforts are underway to study the impact of these developments, identify critical barriers and pathways to widespread adoption, and introduce policies that enable improved access to telehealth services. Will this rapid shift allow us to realize the promise of telehealth? Will it allow us to scale its use and spread access to health services? Can increased use of telemedicine help foster health equity and narrow the disparities in health outcomes across underserved communities?