ATA 2021’s Opening Thoughts

Ann Mond Johnson, CEO ATA welcomed conference attendees to American Telemedicine Association’s (ATA) 2021 Virtual Conference to hear and chat with top level speakers.

The ATA CEO stressed that ATA’s goal is to advance individual adoption by reducing the barriers to using telehealth and at the same time, provide the required educational resources. One important area that ATA is stressing today is the need for telehealth to be used collaboratively to achieve success when addressing the inequities and health disparities that exist in our country today.

Keynote speaker Joseph Kvedar, MD, Professor, Harvard Medical Schools, Senior Advisor, Virtual Care, Mass General Brigham, Editor, npj Digital Medicine, and Chair of the Board at ATA presented his thoughts on the lessons learned from the use of telehealth in 2020 and 2021.

He made specific recommendations as to how the industry can create a hybrid care delivery system that balances in person and virtual care. He stressed how important it is to move telehealth forward. The choices the country makes in recent months will determine the landscape for telehealth in the U.S for at least a decade.

Dr. Kvedar pointed out, “From March to June 2020, as patients and doctors saw the use of telehealth increase and as a result, the field saw enormous growth. However, telehealth is leveling off with some providers backing off using telehealth and pulling back to using the brick and mortar approach. Their reasons are that there are beds to fill, fees to pay for facilities, and more is being provided by large telehealth providers.

Dr. Kvedar explained by mentioning the fact that the future of reimbursement is still uncertain. The originating site rule via Medicare law needs to be addressed plus Federal policies need to be made permanent laws.

He continued to say, “Other factors include addressing value based payment model needed to pull telehealth forward. Also, providers are afraid consumer technology companies will take over primary care, broadband availability needs to increase especially in rural areas, the country needs to address the fact that there is a low supply of providers available to provide care for the population especially in rural communities, and suppliers need to double down on developing innovative and top level efficient tools.  If these factors are addressed then telehealth will be able to rise to the top in the health and medical fields.”