The New Age of Telehealth: What Is Working

This session will consider developments in telehealth from the policy and clinical perspectives.

On the policy front, the session will review trends in telehealth utilization, with a particular focus on behavioral health and substance use disorder (SUD) services, following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Presenters will discuss the key temporary federal state policy changes that enabled greater access to telehealth generally, and SUD specifically, during the public health emergency (PHE), and identify opportunities for policymakers to ensure continued access to telehealth for SUD treatment beyond the PHE.

From the clinical perspective, the presentation will describe barriers to opioid and other SUD care contributing to low rates of evidence-based treatment use and the potential role of telehealth to address these barriers. The presentation will focus on the current state of research on effectiveness of telehealth-delivered care, COVID-19 related changes in telehealth policies, and the impacts of these policy changes on SUD care. Finally, the presentation will describe ongoing challenges and opportunities to improve telehealth-delivered SUD care.