Medicaid programs currently use telehealth to deliver services for a variety of clinical conditions and populations. Telehealth has the potential to mitigate barriers such as an insufficient supply of providers, inadequate transportation options, and long distances and associated travel time, particularly for patients in rural and frontier areas. It also may help assuage patients’ concerns about confidentiality and stigma, particularly for behavioral health services.
Chapter 2 discusses the flexibility states have to cover telehealth in Medicaid and some considerations. It also highlights the application of telehealth to behavioral health, oral health, and maternity services, as well as to services for high-need populations, such as individuals who use home and community-based services. The Commission finds that evidence on the effectiveness and outcomes of telehealth is mixed. States seeking to implement or expand coverage of telehealth would likely benefit from additional research as well as from the experiences of other states to gain a more robust understanding of the effects of telehealth on access to care, quality of care, and cost of care for people with Medicaid.
From: March 2018 Report to Congress on Medicaid and CHIP