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May 2021

Telehealth has permanent place in mental health treatment post-pandemic, providers say

By News

Dr. Raed Azzam, an epileptologist with the Cleveland Clinic Neurological Institute, talks with a patient during a telemedicine appointment at his office at the Cleveland Clinic Akron General Wellness Center in March. While telehealth appointments aren’t new, they’re being used with greater frequency because of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially for mental health services, and are likely here to stay.

 

After a year of talking with patients via Zoom, phone and sometimes FaceTime, some mental health providers are confident that telemedicine is here to stay, even after the pandemic goes away.

Kristen Carpenter, director of ambulatory services at Ohio State Harding Hospital, said the hospital did some telehealth services before the pandemic, but it mostly was used to connect different emergency rooms and to provide emergency psychiatric care. But with COVID-19, the hospital went from providing “almost 100 percent in-person care to almost 100 percent care via telehealth” almost immediately, she said.

Now, with about 90 percent of Harding’s outpatient care still provided via telehealth, Carpenter said she foresees a future where patients can choose how they’d like to receive their care.

“Our patients have experienced almost no interruption in their care,” she said. “We have been able to provide care that we never thought we could do via telehealth.”

Harding currently offers individual counseling and psychiatry services in person and via telehealth. Its partial hospitalization and intensive outpatient program — a structured three- to four-week treatment program that typically requires patients to attend full-day group sessions in the hospital — now takes place over Zoom.

John Dawson, interim president and CEO of Community for New Direction in Columbus, Ohio, also sees telemedicine in the nonprofit group’s future — even though it had offered no telehealth services before the pandemic.

“We have a higher show rate. There’s so many barriers to mental health and substance use disorder patients getting to appointments that telehealth has helped tremendously in that area,” he said.

A new study finds during the first few months of the pandemic, patients were more likely to use telehealth services for behavioral health treatment than physical conditions, according to a January study published recently by RAND Corp. The study shows that 53.6 percent of patients with a behavioral health condition sought treatment via telehealth from mid-March to early May of 2020. By comparison, 43.2 percent of patients with a chronic physical condition used telehealth to receive care during the same period.

Providing services via phone or video conferencing has broken down many barriers including unreliable access to transportation and work conflicts, Carpenter said. At Harding, for example, there are fewer emergency cancellations and lower no-show rates because of telehealth appointments, she said.

As with other things provided remotely, however, there are some drawbacks.

Linda Jakes, executive director of Concord Counseling Services in Westerville, Ohio, said the nonprofit group found it a bit more difficult in particular o treat young children and older adults remotely. Both groups tend to be more difficult to engage, she said, and older adults sometimes have more trouble navigating technology than other patients.

“It could be difficult when you’re just having a phone conversation with someone to really see the body language associated,” Jakes said. “There’s a lot of things that we use our eyes for.”

There are other challenges as well, said Dawson of Community for New Direction.

Having reliable internet and access to a private space for appointments are privileges that some people simply don’t have, he said.

To address telehealth accessibility, he said his agency is working to provide funding for data cards and phones for patients in need.

Aside from accessibility, some patients must be seen in person, Dawson said. Those include individuals with severe opiate use disorder or personality disorders, for instance, who require closer assessment. All patients, he added, come into the office for their intake paperwork and subsequent drug tests, if it is part of their treatment plan.

Concord Counseling has established safety protocols such as staggered appointment times and alternating days that employees come in, but otherwise is letting individual clinicians decide when they want to bring patients into the office, said Mike Preston, director of clinical operation. He said most providers have in-person appointments with patients for whom “telehealth is just not working for them.”

Carpenter said having mostly virtual appointments has been draining for providers, who sit in front of computer screens for hours at a time without breaks. And though mental health treatment lends itself to telehealth, the social interaction that in-person care provides is lost in virtual appointments.

“As the year has progressed, we’ve focused a lot on how coming into the office can actually be a kind of intervention for behavioral health, to draw them back out into the world,” she said.

Jakes said telehealth has been invaluable and she can’t imagine returning to offering only in-person care. But she said many clinicians are looking forward to certain milestones that they didn’t appreciate before the pandemic.

“I was talking to one of our therapists the other day and she goes, ‘Oh my God, it’s going to be so exciting to come back,’ because she has a chunk of her caseload that she’s never even met, she’s only done telehealth,” Jakes said. “She goes, ‘If I passed them on the street, I wouldn’t even know who they are.’”

A Discussion on Rural Broadband in South Carolina

By News

Feds to send $2B to SC, millions more to counties and cities in new COVID-19 aid

By News

Posted May 13, 2021

Updated May 11, 2021 11:35 AM

South Carolina’s state government will get almost $2.5 billion in new COVID-19 relief, with millions more headed to the state’s counties and cities tied up in the administration’s latest $350 billion round of federal coronavirus aid announced this week.Every one of the state’s 46 counties and a handful of cities will get a share of the relief.

Lexington County will get $58 million, and Richland County will take $80 million. Charleston County will take home almost $80 million, and Greenville County, one of the state’s fastest-growing counties, will get more than $101 million. Horry County is slated to get $68 million, and $54 million will go to York County.

Out of about $66 million total, the city of Columbia will get more than $27 million, the city of Charleston will get $21 million and Greenville will get $17.9 million. Among the coastal cities, the federal government will send $5.2 million to Hilton Head Island, almost $8 million to Myrtle Beach and almost $2 million to North Myrtle Beach. Rock Hill in York County will get $13 million.

The Biden administration announced the new aid Monday, part of the president’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus package signed into law in March.

The White House said payouts could be coming to state and local governments in the coming days.

For local governments, money is slated to come in two rounds with half paid out this month and the remaining a year from now. Meanwhile, states that recorded a 2-percentage-point hike in unemployment rates relative to February 2020 will get their checks in a single payment. The rest will get their money in two rounds.

The state, counties and cities will have broad powers over how they can spend the money from the U.S. Treasury, officials said.

Uses of the money could include mitigating public health costs, addressing COVID-19 financial hardships that families face, helping small businesses, revitalizing tourism and hospitality, investing in expanding broadband internet and fixing sewer and water infrastructure.

And states could use the money to defray costs for vaccinations, COVID-19 testing, contact tracing and personal protective equipment.

Governments cannot use the federal aid to cover any tax cuts, pay down debts or enhance emergency reserve accounts.

The Legislature spent $208 million earlier this year to cover vaccination efforts and coronavirus testing. In that legislation, lawmakers included a measure that would allow the state to use federal dollars before state money to pay for those efforts.

“We all know that one of the things that held back the recovery the most after the Great Recession was the contraction of state and local government,” said Gene Sperling, the administration official overseeing aid distribution for the White House, the Associated Press reported. “This is responding to the lessons of the past in a powerful way.”

The news follows Gov. Henry McMaster’s announcement last week that the state would pull out of the federal government’s pandemic unemployment program, providing an extra benefit to unemployed people.

Starting June 30, the state will no longer be part of the program through the state Department of Employment and Workforce.

South Carolina’s economy has rebounded better than many other states, avoiding budget cuts that other states reported, though its unemployment rate slipped down to 5.1% in March from 5.2% in February.

But the state, McMaster said, has another problem: the state has more than 81,000 available job openings, and McMaster and other leaders say the added now $300-a-week unemployment bump is encouraging people to stay out of the workforce.

Democrats, workers’ advocates and civil rights leaders have rejected that argument and condemned the governor’s order, saying that many have stayed out of the workforce for a whole host of reasons that may include lack of access to childcare.

“What was intended to be a short-term financial assistance for the vulnerable and displaced,” during the COVID-19 pandemic, McMaster wrote last week to jobs director Dan Ellzey, has “turned into a dangerous federal entitlement, incentivizing and paying workers to stay at home rather than encouraging them to return to the workplace.

Read more here: https://www.thestate.com/news/coronavirus/article251317163.html#storylink=cpy

Emergency Broadband Benefit begins today

By News

May 12, 2021

The Federal Communications Commission has launched a temporary program to help families and households struggling to afford Internet service during the COVID-19 pandemic.  The Emergency Broadband Benefit provides a discount of up to $50 per month toward broadband service for eligible households and up to $75 per month for households on qualifying Tribal lands. Eligible households can also receive a one-time discount of up to $100 to purchase a laptop, desktop computer, or tablet from participating providers.

Eligible households can enroll through a participating broadband provider or directly with the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) using an online or mail in application.

You can learn more about the benefit, including eligibility and enrollment information, by visiting  www.fcc.gov/broadbandbenefit, or by calling 833-511-0311

Download a copy of the flyer here.

How COVID-19 Affects the Telehealth, Remote Patient Monitoring Landscape

By News

Posted May 6, 2021

With lessons learned from the coronavirus pandemic, health systems and telehealth vendors are shaping their connected health strategies – and identifying key trends – for years to come.

What you should know about the Emergency Broadband Benefit

By News

The $3.2B Emergency Broadband Benefit program provides a discount of up to a $50 per month toward broadband service for eligible households and up to $75 per month for qualifying households on qualifying Tribal lands.  The benefit also provides up to a $100 per household discount toward a one-time purchase of a computer, laptop, or tablet if the household contributes more than $10 and less than $50 toward the purchase through a participating broadband provider.

A household is eligible if one member of the household meets at least one of the criteria below:

  • Has an income that is at or below 135% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines or participates in certain assistance programs, such as SNAP, Medicaid or the FCC’s Lifeline program;
  • Approved to receive benefits under the free and reduced-price school lunch program or the school breakfast program, including through the USDA Community Eligibility Provision, in the 2019-2020 or 2020-2021 school year;
  • Received a Federal Pell Grant during the current award year;
  • Experienced a substantial loss of income through job loss or furlough since February 29, 2020 and the household had a total income in 2020 at or below $99,000 for single filers and $198,000 for joint filers; or
  • Meets the eligibility criteria for a participating provider’s existing low-income or COVID-19 program.

Emergency Broadband Benefit enrollment will begin (opened) on May 12, 2021. Eligible households can enroll through a participating broadband provider or directly with the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) using an online or mail-in application.  Additional information about the Emergency Broadband Benefit is available at  www.fcc.gov/broadbandbenefit, or by calling 833-511-0311 between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. any day of the week.

 

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