USDA Grants $72M for Telemedicine Initiatives

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is offering $72 million in grants to support telemedicine and distance learning opportunities in rural parts of the U.S.  USDA will fund 116 projects through its Distance Learning and Telemedicine grant program, which helps healthcare and educational institutions purchase the equipment and software needed to rollout virtual health and learning services.

AMA Adds New CPT Codes Multi-Virus Tests to Detect COVID-19 and Flu

The American Medical Association (AMA) today published an update to the Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) code set that includes new code additions and editorial revisions for reporting medical services sparked by the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Q3 2020 Digital Health Funding Breaks $4B: 3 Key Trends to Know

Digital health funding reached a record-breaking $4.0B in Q3 2020 for a total of $9.4B year to date as it continues to be the largest funding year ever, according to Rock Health, a full-service venture fund dedicated to digital health. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the stock market’s sharp recovery and pandemic-initiated policy and regulation changes are driving large competitive moves and commercialization activities in the digital health sector.

Payers Integrate Virtual, In-Person Social Determinants Support

When Blue Shield Promise and LA Care shut down their in-person community resource centers in March 2020, they leveraged virtual platforms to connect members with social determinants of health resources. Now that the centers can open, the payers are navigating the challenges of reopening as well as exploring ways to integrate virtual and in-person community support.