NYS Hep C Telemedicine Workgroup – Meeting Notes
August 20 (10 – 11 AM) via Webinar
In attendance at this meeting: See below notes
Next Meeting: Thursday, September 17 – 10:00 AM
Workgroup Chair: Andrew Talal, MD, University at Buffalo, ahtalal@buffalo.edu
Workgroup goals: Short term: Identify, assess, document and disseminate current strategies and opportunities to provide hepatitis C treatment in substance use treatment facilities, via telemedicine. Long-term: Develop a NYS Telehealth network to provide a forum for ongoing learning and sharing of best practices to promote hepatitis B and C care and treatment through telehealth.
Meeting Notes
Hepatitis C Treatment via telemedicine: research project proposal – Pruthvi Patel, MD
- Project proposal:
- Physicians’ Experiences with telehealth in treating patients with Hep C during COVID-19
- Study design: Survey/Questionnaire for providers treating Hep C from Jan-June 2020
- Collecting info on demographics, resources, ethics, technical effectiveness and Hep C-specific effectiveness, physician experience
- Discussion and feedback
- Consider expanding Telehealth to country jail settings for HCV treatment; bail reform is changing the county jail landscape. AIDS Institute is working on a jail survey regarding Hep C and STI treatment.
- Survey should assess challenges with Telehealth services and broader Hep C services for providers in rural areas
- Availability of lab testing during COVID:
- Policy Item: Consider allowing blood draw in pharmacy
- Home blood draw visits may work with a segment of the patient population, but may challenging to implement across all of the population
- CabLab (in Hudson Valley Regions, NYC and LI); LabFly (in NYC and LI) being used at Hudson River Health (HRH) Care with Dr Aisha Kahn
- Contact: Pruthvi Patel if you wish to collaborate in this study: pruthvi.patel@mountsinai.org
NYS Tele-medicine Policy and Regulation Updates – Sandeep Krishnan
- Medicare was billed $4 billion in March and April 2020 compared to $60 million the same two months in 2019.
- Private payers are not uniformly reimbursing these services and are not aligned with Medicare waivers/policies to expand telehealth during COVID
- Decker School is integrating telehealth in curriculum for NP’s and RN’s. Need to expand the workforce in rural areas for Hep C, behavioral health
- Possibility to use HRSA planning grant to develop a NY State-wide telehealth network, possibly for the treatment of Hepatitis and opioid treatment
Letter on Hep C Treatment in Opioid Treatment Programs
- Letter will be sent to additional networks of providers in order to collect additional signatures (goal #: 75 signatures)
- Letter will be sent to OASAS, Medicaid and Governor’s office.
Forward planning discussion
- Invite Office of Rural Health to future calls
Resources:
- NYS Telehealth Resources for hepatitis providers – webpage on Hep Free NYC
- NYC REACH: Expansion of Telehealth services – webinars
In Attendance:
- Andrew Talal, MD, SUNY Research Foundation, ahtalal@buffalo.edu
- Jeff Weiss, REACH, jeffrey.weiss@mountsinai.org
- Sonal Kumar, MD, Cornell, sok9028@med.cornell.edu
- Pat Lincourt , NYS OASAS, pat.lincourt@oasas.ny.gov
- Colleen Flanigan, RN, NYS DOH, colleen.flanigan@health.ny.gov
- Nadine Kela-Murphy, MPH, NYC DOHMH, nkelamurphy@health.nyc.gov
- Jessie Schwartz, RN, MPH, NYC DOHMH, jschwartz2@health.nyc.gov
- Nirah Johnson, LCSW, NYC DOHMH, njohnso2@health.nyc.gov
- Meg Chappell, MPH, Empire Liver Foundation, megchapell@empireliverfoundation.org
- Marie Bresnahan, MPH, NYC DOHMH, mbresnahan@health.nyc.gov
- Julia Hunter, Binghamton General Hospital, julia.hunter@nyuhs.org
- Angelica Ramirez, Mount Sinai Health System, angelica.ramirez@mountsinai.org
- Daanish Shaikh, START Treatment and Recovery Centers, dshaikh@startny.org
- Alvin Chu, MA, MPH, START Treatment and Recovery Centers, achu@startny.org
- Rebecca LaMarca, START Treatment and Recovery Centers, rlamarca@startny.org
- Mavis Bailey, START Treatment and Recovery Centers, mbailey@startny,org
- Melanie King, START Treatment and Recovery Centers, mking@startny.org
- Anthony McLeod, START Treatment and Recovery Centers, amcleod@startny.org
- Osherbhode Ramcharan, START Treatment and Recovery Centers, oramcharan@startny.org
- Kathleen Davis, University of Rochester Medical Center, Kathleen_davis@urmc.rochester.edu
- Dan Shappee, AbbVie, Daniel.shappee@abbvie.com
- Aisha Khan, DO, Hudson River Health Care, aikhan@hrhcare.org
- Pruthvi Patel, Mount Sinai, pruthvi.patel@mountsinai.org
- Deborah Brown, Deborah.brown@health.nyc.gov
- Stephanie McHugh, stephanie.mchugh@health.nyc.gov
- Kelly Ramsey, MD, OASAS, kelly.ramsey@oasas.ny.gov
- Andrew Reynolds, areynoldshcv@gmail.com
- Justine Waldman, REACH, jwaldman@reachmed.org
- Arslan Mohamed, amohamed1@health.nyc.gov
