The article was written by Maggie Flynn
Date: June 29, 2020
Published by Skilled Nursing News, visit the website.
The federal government implemented sweeping waivers to broaden access to telemedicine for Medicare beneficiaries at the start of the COVID-19 national emergency. And now that skilled nursing facilities have gotten a chance to see the benefits over several months, it will be difficult to take them back when the pandemic ends.
“Telemedicine in the 1135 [waivers], it’s kind of like toothpaste that’s now out of the tube,” Dr. Waseem Ghannam, the founder of the telemedicine company Telehealth Solution, told Skilled Nursing News in a June 24 interview. “It’s going to be really tough to put it back in.”
His company, which provides telehealth services to SNFs in 23 states, provides hardware that includes a cart, tablet, stethoscope, electrocardiogram, pulse oximeter, and two-way video and audio, with other modalities that it can add. The firm also has an application that allows nursing homes to put out a page for physicians.