New Group Shakes Up Medicaid Connected Care

A new non-profit group launched officially on November 13 during the Fall Conference from the National Association of Medicaid Directors. This group has named themselves HealthTech4Medicaid (HT4M), and states that their mission is to “further improve quality and access to care for Medicaid recipients.” It is made up of top executives from over forty health-tech companies from across the nation and has an Expert Council to advise them comprised of leaders in the connected care technology field.

In so many ways Medicaid is one of the most important battle grounds for furthering health technology innovation and access to care expansion. As HT4M points out on their website, about 75 million, or 1 in 5, Americans use Medicaid plans to pay for their medical care. This includes 6 in 10 children and 10 million disabled citizens, as well as many pregnant women and low income families.

And telemedicine is the most powerful weapon in our arsenal when it comes to access to care – the ability to combat so effectively the barriers of distance, transportation, schedule, and availability in one tool is undeniable.  With so many seeking care through Medicaid programs, why wouldn’t we want to facilitate it to be even easier to get that care?

The applications for telehealth through Medicaid are many: first and foremost is the opioid crisis, but not far behind comes chronic care management and specialist consultations. All of these fields and more are necessary for the health of our nation to improve and the resources to do so to be easily accessed by every single person, not just those who can afford it.  HT4M is starting the conversation, at least, and we applaud them and the innovative ways they will be trying to push those most-constructive technologies through the necessary channels to be seen by legislators at state levels. Their approach of market-changing tactics combined with education and advocacy sounds promising, and we are looking forward to seeing what they do in this industry in the near future.

To read the initial press release, click here.

To find out more about HealthTech4Medicaid, click here.

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