Telehealth has certainly made its mark in the senior living and nursing home sectors. Among other positive steps it’s known for are: making resident/patient care more efficient in rural areas, helping better treat chronic conditions and improving mental healthcare access, in particular.
But the marketing of telehealth services online has come under scrutiny from federal agencies lately, which could bring implications to long-term care.
The Federal Trade Commission currently ix cracking down on telehealth services’ marketing efforts on Facebook and Google, fining telehealth companies for violations of customer privacy through data collected online. Amid its investigation into telehealth data collection, the director of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights has called the patient data collection as “problematic” and “widespread.”
As a result of the FTC’s enforcement efforts, it’s more difficult for telehealth companies to market their services online, spending only a quarter of what they did last year on Facebook and Google advertising, according to The Healthcare Technology Report.
For residents, patients and administrators, those telehealth marketing restrictions could mean lack of awareness or adoption of these services, observers say. For instance, cancer patients felt more fulfilled via telemedicine rather than in-person physician visits for accessing care and provider responsiveness, according to a recent survey from the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, FL. When it came to access to care, 76% of patients surveyed said they were highly satisfied with telemedicine visits, compared with just 62.5% of those who had inpatient visits, researchers said.
Telehealth saw a boom during the pandemic, although its adoption has slowed in recent months, with its use declining by 6.8% nationwide in February, according to the Monthly Telehealth Regional Tracker — this, after three consecutive months of growth.
