The Behavioral Health Institute (BHI) has released an Executive Summary & a Summary of Relaxed Regulations regarding improved access to telehealth during COVID. Both of these are living documents, and updated versions will be posted as they are received.
Executive Summary – Sustaining Improved Access to Behavioral Telehealth
Summary of Relaxed Regulations
”During the COVID crisis, numerous regulations and policies related to telehealth and telemedicine have been temporarily relaxed in order to allow access to important services at a time when accessing services in-person was not an option. Many of these relaxed regulations proved successful at not only ensuring continuity of critical services, but at actually expanding services to people who were not accessing them through traditional methods. Before these changes are rescinded to pre-emergency levels, we have an obligation to evaluate which regulations are critical to expanding healthcare to the underserved citizens of Washington. Our goal in this effort is to produce a set of recommendations that sustain increased access to healthcare and align with the goals of the Healthier Washington Initiative.”
