Indiana Congressman Greg Pence recently attended a hearing about making telehealth more accessible. He discussed how telehealth really helped during the pandemic and wants to keep those benefits around for people in rural areas. He’s supporting a bill called the Telehealth Modernization Act to ensure that folks in places like Indiana can keep getting good care.

Pence also thinks we should use telehealth more for mental health services, especially in areas without healthcare workers.

“During the Trump-Pence Administration, HHS, USDA, and the FCC came together under a Memorandum of Understanding for purposes of expanding access to telehealth services,” he said. “Together, these agencies collaborated to utilize their collective expertise so that rural patients in underserved areas could be connected to the care they need wherever they are.”

He mentioned how hospitals in Indiana have been using telehealth for things like check-ups and urgent care, which has been pretty successful.

Pence asked Dr. Schwamm if Artificial Intelligence (AI) could play a role in expediting telehealth.

“Absolutely, so many of the things we do, we do manually,” said Schwamm. “Not just on the front end, but on the back end, like the processing, claims, and prior authorizations. We have a huge opportunity to declutter and reduce the administrative burden that allows clinicians to practice at the top of their license and to focus on creating care pathways for how your care should proceed after you leave the office.”

The Telemental Health Care Access Act would eliminate originating site restrictions for patients seeking mental and behavioral health services.