Telehealth has played a significant role in delivering healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly for older Americans. Due to the numerous restrictions and guidelines enacted to slow down the spread of the coronavirus, virtual care became critical to reaching out to seniors for care.

But its also true that seniors find it difficult to use video call technology and the major challenges are about access and education. Reimbursement was an issue too with stringent rules from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. But these regulations were eased. 5 things you should know when billing telehealth and telemedicine services.

This let providers to rapidly shift to virtual modalities as it was evident that the pandemic would lead to shift in utilization.

According to a survey shared in May by the Alliance of Community Health Plans and AMCP, 72% of American consumers changed their use of traditional healthcare services. Many delayed in-person care and embraced virtual care due to the pandemic.

But its important to educate patients on the use of telehealth, especially among seniors as they quite often lack access and technological acumen, though each senior is different. Some seniors are comfortable with technology while some find it tough to use technology.

There are varied benefits you can derive from virtual care, but the challenge is letting the seniors know how to do it. Often its not the seniors themselves but the challenges faced by them. For example, in Texas, people face the challenge of poor broadband access, so its tough to use telehealth for certain populations like minorities, rural residents and older Americans.

This is a multilayered issue including access, technological feasibility and making seniors comfortable with the modality. But, it’s necessary to invest in areas like infrastructure and patient communication.

Dr. Paul Hain, chief medical officer at GoHealth says that for example having Medicare Advantage plans, where you can have physicians in a fiscally aligned manner so they need not worry about billing for every little thing. They can easily and quickly transition to telemedicine. It will be interesting to observe how this works out.