In communities across the country where wealth and medical care is scarce, Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) can be a critical safety net to keep the neighborhood alive and well. These community healthcare centers provide access to medical, dental and behavioral health services, regardless of a patient’s ability to pay. Since most FQHCs operate in areas where quality mental health providers are in short supply, telepsychiatry can enable them to offer behavioral health services to underserved patients.

Reimbursement varies significantly by state as well as by payer, which means there are no hard and fast rules to help organizations determine if– and how much – they may be reimbursed for telepsychiatry services. While the federal Medicare program guidelines apply across the U.S., Medicaid programs are administered at the state level, which means each state can set its own criteria and telepsychiatry coverage. Each state can also determine whether private payers must offer reimbursement for telemedicine, causing significant variations in payments to clinicians and healthcare facilities.

Building a strong care team to support community mental health is a top priority for Forest County Potawatomi. By turning to Regroup telepsychiatry, the community has overcome geographic and cultural barriers to make that vision a reality.

While the approaches to promoting mental health are as varied as the conditions treated, telemedicine is transforming how providers across the spectrum care for patients. Whether patients receive treatment from their community health center, primary care physician (PCP) or in specialized settings, like corrections, telepsychiatry is a proven way to care for patients with a variety of mental health needs.

Hospitals Can Use Telepsych To Offer More Mental Health Services

The yoga sessions and health bingo nights you’ll find at an Oak Street Health center are the first sign that it’s not your typical healthcare facility. With a mission to “rebuild healthcare as it should be,” the network of primary care practices for Medicare patients focuses on caring for the whole person to keep patients healthy and promote their well-being.

Implementing a telepsychiatry program can help healthcare organizations eliminate many obstacles common in providing mental health treatment, from overcoming geographic barriers to reducing costs by allowing facilities to choose the right level of care. For organizations that are new to telepsych, however, rolling out a program often comes with many questions. Here, Regroup’s Director of Clinical Deployments, Chelsea Greenbaum, answers common questions about getting started with a telepsychiatry partner and how Regroup guides its partners through the deployment process.

Join Regroup as we discuss the challenges that mental health clinicians currently face when it comes to burnout and well-being, and approaches to enhance self-care. Our Medical Director, Dr. Hossam Mahmoud and Senior Consulting Psychiatrist, Dr. Omar Elhaj will discuss how telepsychiatry can be incorporated in a manner that can support clinician well-being and mitigate some of the factors that contribute to stress and burnout. 

Whether providing telehealth online or seeing patients in person, clinicians need to make strong patient relationships a priority. Long believed to be true, a 2014 report offered clear evidence that trusting relationships between clinicians and patients lead to better treatment outcomes. In fact, the report stated that efforts to improve the patient-clinician relationship “can produce health effects just as beneficial as taking a daily aspirin to prevent a heart attack.”

 Occasionally, even great ideas – like telepsych – take a while to gain popularity. Though the practice has been around for six decades, its usage has grown recently as telepsychiatry technology has evolved to provide better access and quality. The last few years have seen significant increase in the rates at which healthcare providers and patients are using telepsychiatry services with positive results.

Telepsych services are transforming access to care for the nearly 90 million Americans living in mental health care professional shortage areas, according to the Health Resources & Services Administration. Many of these underserved Americans are in rural areas, where poverty, unemployment, and accidents and natural disasters are more prevalent.