On March 2, 2016, the Massachusetts Office for Administration and Finance via their Health Policy Commission (HPC), issued an RFP for their “Telemedicine Pilot Initiative” to provide state residents with community-based access to behavioral health services.
According to HPC, since 2010, behavioral health visits to Emergency Departments (ED) in Massachusetts is up by 24 percent, even while overall ED volume and volume in every other major service category has declined. Bringing behavioral health patients to EDs has increased by 40 percent in the last three years with the majority of long stay ED patients exhibiting other health issues.
The HPC is charged with facilitating lower costs along with more efficient and innovative care and involved in testing the use of emerging and innovative care delivery and payment models. One HPC initiative is to test the potential of telemedicine to expand access to needed healthcare services.
Despite the benefits of telemedicine, adoption in Massachusetts has been somewhat limited. Stakeholders cite inadequate payer coverage, inadequate regulatory supports for provider licensing and credentialing, and slow consumer uptake.
The HPC seeks to evaluate the impact of telemedicine on patient experience, quality of care, provider needs, patient flow and efficiency. The plans are to find ways to link tele-behavioral health service models to primary providers, reduce the number of patients transferred to specialty or acute clinical settings, and how to reduce the overall utilization over an episode of care.
The Telemedicine Pilot seeks to demonstrate how the potential of telemedicine can be used in situations where behavioral health access is critical and how to address challenges in high-need target populations. Specifically, the telemedicine pilot will help treat children and adolescents, older adults aging in place, and individuals with substance use disorders that have mental issues.
One million in funding will provide for up to three awards with no single award totaling more than $500,000. Providers and health plans may wish to collaborate with one or more partners to serve a shared population. In addition to improving access to care, applicants need to work to improve system performance in areas affecting patient experience, provider satisfaction, patient flow, and cost reduction.
Proposals are due May 13, 2016 with awardees to be selected July 2016 with the pilot to be implemented March 2017 to March 2018.
Go to www.mass.gov/anf then search for Telemedicine Pilot Initiative. For questions, email HPC-Innovations@state.ma.us.