CareFirst Blue Cross and Blue Shield is investing $3 million to expand access to telehealth programs to its members in Washington D.C., Maryland and parts of Virginia.
CareFirst last week issued the grants to 10 public health and non-profit organizations. The grants range in size from $501,590 to Mosaic Community Services to improve telehealth access for behavioral healthcare treatment in central Maryland to $100,000 to Western Maryland Health Systems for treatment for various chronic medical conditions.
The grants were awarded based on a project’s community need and technical viability, says CareFirst senior vice president of public policy and community affairs Maria Harris Tildon. “CareFirst’s support for programs like these is a crucial component to bringing adequate healthcare services to those who need it most,” she says. “Whether improving upon behavioral health services, enhancing care coordination, or increasing the availability of specialty care, support for each of these initiatives will help provide invaluable and innovative care to some of our most underserved communities.”
The $3 million in funding marks the second round of telehealth grants issued by CareFirst in the past two years. In February 2014 CareFirst awarded more than $1.3 million to four organizations to treat patients with behavioral health care needs in underserved urban and rural areas of Maryland and Washington, D.C. At the time the biggest grant of $647,200 went to Sheppard Pratt Health System to provide about 1,200 patients of federally qualified health centers in Worcester, Somerset, Garrett, Cecil, Caroline and Dorchester counties with access to psychiatrists via teleconferencing and video-conferencing.
Improving telehealth is an objective of the CareFirst mobile health program. In 2013 it rolled out a mobile website and iPhone, iPad and Android apps that enable plan members to access claim information, view their identification cards and find a doctor or urgent care center, among other features.
CareFirst, which insures about 3.4 million is among the first wave of insurance companies to issue grants for expanding telehealth services. But other health insurers are developing telehealth programs. Carriers such as Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama will pay claims for plan members that seek treatment via telehealth, enabling consumers to use their smartphone, tablet or desktop computer and a web connection to conduct a digital doctor visit.
Many other health insurers, including about 30 Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans and commercial insurers such as United Healthcare Service Inc. also operate telehealth programs for plan members using telehealth vendors such as Teledoc.com and Americanwell.com.
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