TeamHealth sold its virtual care provider platform to Fabric, a healthcare technology company.

Johnson City, Tenn.-based Ballad Health has partnered with Andor Health to deploy its AI-powered virtual care platform, ThinkAndor, with the goal of expanding access to healthcare for rural populations. 

The utilization of telehealth saw an increase in the West, Northeast and South in June, according to a new report from FAIR Health's Monthly Telehealth Regional Tracker.

Edison, N.J.-based Hackensack Meridian Health is launching 24/7 virtual primary care in the hopes of increasing access to healthcare in its market.

Healthcare organizations, along with companies like Amazon, have written letters to Congress and the White House, urging them to ensure continued access to remote prescribing of controlled substances.

Baltimore-based LifeBridge Health is expanding its virtual care capabilities across its hospitals.

Iowa City-based University of Iowa Health Care said the health system will start using technology more "aggressively," The Gazette reported Sept. 7. 

Female physicians, primary care physicians, psychiatrists and physicians in nonrural areas provide the highest number of telehealth visits, a recent Weill Cornell Medicine study found.

Kaiser Permanente Ventures participated in a $65 million financing round for a virtual care startup focused on home-based patients.

With the news that UnitedHealth Group is ending its telehealth offerings, Amwell and Teladoc have seen their stocks plummet more than 50% in the past year, Walmart is shuttering all 51 health centers and its virtual care services and Optum is shutting down its virtual care unit after a three-year run, it’s easy for the headlines to be reduced to: telehealth is dead.

The issue of ED boarding – holding admitted patients in the ED – has reached “public health emergency” levels according to the American College of Emergency Physicians. The crisis is especially acute for patients experiencing a mental health emergency who wait on average three times longer in emergency rooms than those with medical needs.

Nationally, telehealth claim lines saw a slight decline, dropping from 4.86% of all medical claim lines in April to 4.82% in May, representing a 0.8% decrease, FAIR Health's monthly telehealth regional tracker found. 

It is anticipated that Congress will extend telehealth access rules for Medicare patients, though likely not until after the election. This delay could have significant repercussions, Politico reported Aug. 9.

While telehealth use has largely leveled off since the COVID-19 pandemic, one group of patients at Kaiser Permanente and UCSF Health has increasingly taken advantage of the technology.

Columbia, Md.-based MedStar Health's telehealth journey began in 2018 during what Bill Sheahan, the organization's chief innovation officer and vice president, called the "era of telehealth exploration." 

The American Telemedicine Association formed a new leadership council featuring 11 health system executives.

UPMC Enterprises, the venture capital arm of Pittsburgh-based UPMC, has sold its inpatient teleconsult technology to eVisit, a virtual care platform. Initially developed during the COVID-19 pandemic, this platform played a crucial role in supporting health systems like New York City-based NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital during the viral surge in New York City.

Healthcare technology company Fabric acquired Walmart's virtual care business, MeMD, which serves 30,000 employers and has 5 million members.

Even though Congress is working to extend pandemic-era telehealth flexibilities, political leaders say the care model has yet to live up to its promise, Politico reported.

While telehealth usage has declined across the healthcare industry since its peak during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kaiser Permanente's phone and video visit rates remain significantly higher than pre-pandemic levels, Desiree Gandrup-Dupre, senior vice president of care delivery technology services, at the organization told Becker's.