Telemedicine and primary care obesity management in rural areas – innovative approach for older adults?

Details

• Alternative Title:
  BMC Geriatr
• Personal Author:
  Batsis, John A. ; Pletcher, Sarah N. ; Stahl, James E.
• Description:
  Background
  
  The growing prevalence of obesity is paralleling a rise in the older adult population creating an increased risk of functional impairment, nursing home placement and early mortality. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid recognized the importance of treating obesity and instituted a benefit in primary care settings to encourage intensive behavioral therapy in beneficiaries by primary care clinicians. This benefit covers frequent, brief, clinic visits designed to address older adult obesity.
  
  Discussion
  
  We describe the challenges in the implementation and delivery into real-world settings. The challenges in rural settings that have the fastest growing elderly population, high obesity rates, but also workforce shortages and lack of specialized services are emphasized. The use of Telemedicine has successfully been implemented in other specialties and could be a useful modality in delivering much needed intensive behavioral therapy, particularly in distant, under-resourced environments. This review outlines some of the challenges with the current benefit and proposed solutions in overcoming rural primary care barriers to implementation, including changes in staffing models.
  
  Conclusions
  
  Recommendations to extend the benefit’s coverage to be more inclusive of non-physician team members is needed but also for improvement in reimbursement for telemedicine services for older adults with obesity.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Aged Behavior Therapy Debate Female Health Services Accessibility Humans Male Medicaid Needs Assessment Primary Health Care Quality Improvement Rural Health Services Rural Population Telemedicine

  More +
• Source:
  BMC Geriatr. 17.
• Pubmed ID:
  28056832
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC5216556
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  R01 HS021681/HS/AHRQ HHS/United States ; U01 HL122904/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/United States ; U54 EB015408/EB/NIBIB NIH HHS/United States ; UL1 TR001086/TR/NCATS NIH HHS/United States ; U48 DP005018/DP/NCCDPHP CDC HHS/United States ; K23 AG051681/AG/NIA NIH HHS/United States ; U01 EB012470/EB/NIBIB NIH HHS/United States
• Place as Subject:
  United States
• Volume:
  17
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:25f8dcbf8b5cc349292211c4c8fbba8f4354c1d395bd7540582f87f71d5cadc4
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/44171/cdc_44171_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 397.30 KB ]