Telehealth

This issue brief describes how publicly-funded family planning providers are adapting in the COVID-19 pandemic and strategies they have implemented to continue providing quality family planning services while in-person visits are limited.

There has been a proliferation of online services in recent years that seek to offer individuals that cannot make it to a clinic or do not have an established source of care access to some contraceptive methods and STI testing through a telemedicine platform, usually a website or a smartphone application. This data note provides an overview of options available for the online management of sexual and reproductive health services during the coronavirus pandemic and discusses the opportunities and limitations of these platforms in terms of availability and cost.

Medicare has lifted several restrictions on who can receive telehealth and the types of services they can receive via telehealth during the COVID-19 public health emergency. This post discusses the possibilities and limits of telehealth for older adults, based on findings from the latest KFF Health Tracking Poll.

With over 6 million pregnancies per year in the U.S., pregnant and breastfeeding women constitute a significant portion of the population that could be impacted by COVID-19. This brief summarizes what is known thus far about pregnancy and COVID-19.

This brief outlines how telemedicine is currently used in obstetrical care, how these services are financed and regulated, and reviews federal efforts to expand the use of telemedicine, particularly to address maternal health disparities.

New KFF analysis outlines the growing use of telemedicine for contraception, abortion and STI care, including a discussion of insurance coverage of telemedicine services, the financial implications for providers and patients, and its potential to improve access to reproductive health care across the United States. 

This brief presents an overview of telemedicine’s current use in sexual and reproductive health care, and reviews considerations in its coverage, potential to improve access, and financial implications for providers and patients.

Released in conjunction with the 2019 Employer Health Benefits Survey, a new report on the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker provides insight from focus groups on the current strategies companies are using to manage rising costs and improve quality of care when configuring provider networks.

Telemedicine has been seen as a way to possibly improve access to care while also lowering costs. New analysis available on the Peterson-Kaiser Health System Tracker finds that the share of large employers offering health plans that cover telemedicine has increased significantly over the last three years.