Report: Telehealth can expand behavioral health care access
Photo | Grant Welker
UMass Memorial Medical Center's 120-bed outpatient mental health facility on Mountain Road East in Worcester, which has allowed for more room for services on its University Campus.
Phone and video delivery of behavioral health services had not "gained widespread traction" in Massachusetts prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new report that said the state could help boost access to care by extending some telehealth policies temporarily adopted during the crisis.
The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation's report, released Tuesday in collaboration with Manatt Health, said the Bay State "led the nation in rapidly deploying progressive new policies to temporarily expand access to telehealth across payers and providers during the pandemic," which resulted in "exponential growth" in telehealth use. Those temporary policy changes included prohibiting specific requirements on the types of technology that can be used to deliver telehealth and requiring insurers to cover telehealth at the same rates as in-person care.
"The ongoing COVID-19 crisis has made clear that telebehavioral health has the unique ability to improve access to behavioral health services in Massachusetts," foundation President Audrey Shelto said in a statement. "This is especially true for populations with particularly challenging access barriers, such as individuals who are low income, homebound, or who live in rural areas of the state, where there are typically fewer available behavioral health providers."
The foundation's report recommends that the state pass a law to establish parity between behavioral telehealth services and in-person care, "broadly implement" technology that complies with patient privacy laws, promote consumer awareness of telebehavioral health, continue allowing visits that are conducted by telephone only, without video, and expand access to internet and cellular service for low-income and rural populations.
The Senate last month passed a bill that would require insurers to cover telemedicine services, including audio-only, in all instances where in-person care would be covered, and to reimburse providers at the same rate for telehealth as in-person care for the next two years.
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