With telehealth usage during the pandemic—up from 2.1 million services in 2019, to 32.5 million services from March 2020-February 2021—the GAO (US Government Accountability Office) realized that Medicaid hasn’t collected or assessed any data on the quality-of-care beneficiaries received from telehealth services.

The GAO now recommends that they do so. Given concerns the GAO has raised about the quality of care provided via telehealth, this beneficiary data is crucial. It’s also consistent with how CMS has encouraged states to use data on quality of care to identify disparities in health care and target opportunities for improvement to advance health equity.

During the next live edition of Talk Ten Tuesdays, Terry Fletcher, a healthcare coding expert, will discuss how the GAO is holding CMS accountable for assessing the effect of increased telehealth use by Medicaid Beneficiaries.

The live broadcast will also feature these other segments:

• Coding Report: Laurie Johnson, senior healthcare consultant with Revenue Cycle Solutions, LLC, will report on the latest coding news.
• Talk Law: Brianna J. Santolli, Esq., a healthcare and litigation attorney with Riker Danzig Scherer Hyland & Perretti LLP, will continue with the broadcast’s newest segment. 
• Tuesday Focus: Christel Kemble, an RN at Covenant Health will be discussing patient safety indicators (PSI) and the problems around them.
• News Desk: John Zelem, MD, FACS, founder and CEO for Streamline Solutions Consulting, will anchor the Talk Ten Tuesdays News Desk.
  
  
• Point of View: Susan Gatehouse, a guest cohost who will be substituting for Dr. Erica Remer, will report her point of view.