News Release
Nearly All Telehealth Appointments at Clinics for Lower-Income Americans Were Audio-Only, Raising Questions About Quality and Equity
Feb 2, 2021
Published in: Journal of the American Medical Association (February 2020). doi: 10.1001/jama.2021.0282
Posted on RAND.org on February 04, 2021
This article was published outside of RAND. The full text of the article can be found at the link above.
Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) are outpatient health centers that provide comprehensive primary care to 30 million low-income individuals. When the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic began in March 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) granted flexibilities to FQHCs to furnish video and telephone (audio only) visits to patients at any location. Pandemic-related regulatory waivers led to a substantial increase in telehealth across the health care system.
Little is known about visit trends during the COVID-19 pandemic among patients of FQHCs. We described trends in the use of in-person, telephone, and video visits among California FQHCs before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This article was published outside of RAND. The full text of the article can be found at the link above.
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