Telehealth and Provider Consultations

In this episode we're joined by Katie Marvin, MD, from Community Health Services of Lamoille Valley (CHSLV) and Jennifer Fenn, NP, from Northern Tier Center for Health (NOTCH) to talk about provider-to-provider connections through telehealth.

One thing this episode doesn't touch on is what is reimbursable in these systems, which use specialist input to keep treatment in primary care. There's a mixture of reimbursable and non-reimbursable items in this conversation.

eConsults are one form of "store and forward" telehealth - asynchronous connections that happen not in real time. In Vermont these were previously only reimbursable for dermatology and ophthalmology but recent legislation is opening them up to a range of specialties. As this episode describes, the hope is that this gets us to the much-sought-after health care moment of both improving access to care and saving significant money within the system. It also makes programs like the one at NOTCH (currently funded through a grant) sustainable and replicable. A very exciting telehealth moment. And, in full disclosure, one that Bi-State lobbied for - you can read our testimony on this topic here.

Thank you to Northern Counties Health Care for making this series possible.