Primary-care registered nurse telehealth policy implications
Susan Watkins, Judy Neubrander
Abstract
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has drastically changed health-care delivery models within primary-care settings. Primary-care providers are limiting routine care face-to-face office visits while triaging COVID-19 symptomatic patients to hospital emergency rooms. Primary-care providers are rapidly adopting telehealth modalities for care provisions during this unprecedented pandemic to allow practices to continue delivering primary care while preventing community spread of COVID-19. Federal legislation has responded to emergent public-health needs by removing barriers that have impeded widespread adoption of telehealth modalities. This legislation has omitted professional registered nurses (RNs) from delivering reimbursable telehealth services, which is problematic for primary-care practice. RNs historically have led telehealth service delivery and should therefore be included in new legislation as eligible health professionals permitted to provide reimbursable telehealth services. RNs improve quality outcomes in primary care within innovative team-based care models and are essential clinicians capable of providing ongoing care coordination and disease management for patients needing to stay on track with their usual care needs.