Many healthcare experts, and even government agencies, are working to try to expand telehealth coverage for older adults. But much of that work considers telehealth in terms of video and/or phone conversations.
E-mails and digital messaging across patient portals, however, also are part of seniors’ healthcare regimen, particularly those who are Medicare beneficiaries, finds a new study published in Health Affairs Scholar.
As such, updated telehealth coverage decisions should factor in the time that older adults, their caregivers and clinicians need to exchange these messages, the researchers said.
“E-visit billing has sparked debate on finding the right balance between enhancing patient access to care while fairly compensating for clinicians’ time,” the study authors wrote. “Our findings can help alleviate concerns regarding the potential overuse of portal messaging and e-visits billing.”
The latter issue is a crucial concern, because although some messages exchanges can be quick or inconsequential, approximlatly 30% of of the e-visits that were billed to Medicare involved a clinician or caregiver spending at least 20 minutes on the messages, the authors found, noting that situation this could add up to extra hours each week that weren’t baked into an existing schedule.
The most common conditions for those message-based e-visits were for people who have high blood pressure and diabetes, the study results showed.
Whether artificial intelligence tools can address such communication or documentation remains open for debate. Many healthcare providers are turning to AI tools to help alleviate potential burnout among caregivers and clinicians. But some experts are concerned this situation will deprive older adults of the much-needed human element in addressing their care needs.
Congress currently is weighing a bill that would make permanent certain pandemic-driven telehealth provisions for older adults, which healthcare organizations such as the American Hospital Association continue to push for.
