Extending the range of home tele-services that can be brought to today's patients.

 

July 2005
Funding & Home Telehealth: Some Roads To Travel To Get There

Funding for home telehealthcare—is there any? Will the question ever be easy to answer?

Historically (and it’s been only a short history, after all) there has not been funding in the U.S. for home telehealth services from usual payer sources such as Medicare and Medicaid. However, slowly, over the past 10 years, some payment options have become available through federal insurers, private payers, foundation grants and elsewhere (noted very briefly here). None of the funding is provided without some conditions, of course. And so, ours jobs simply have to be to develop stronger backbones and degrees of tenacity in researching what’s available and do-able so that we can build home telehealth programs that we can afford to deliver and sustain.

Where are the likely sources of funding specifically for home telehealth? We don’t hesitate to tell you—it depends… on where you are, how much money you need, and other identifying factors about your agency or institution and your patients. A range of funding sources for you to research is provided in the Funding Resources segment with some specifics on eligibility requirements.

Reports in our Case Studies segment below demonstrate some needed, broad approaches in obtaining and using funding for home telehealth. We all need to know more in the how-to department! We’ll learn from 5 providers who are championing the cause of home telehealth and report on the need for adopting a very specific focus on garnering community support-- in dollars and spirit….

What do we need to know about the likelihood for us in particular of obtaining funding successfully? Ask those who’ve helped others about their views and strategies to help us do our own homework. In our Look Homeward segment, Liz Sheahan, a key grant writer for Ministry Home Care offers solid advice for all us.

Additional readings and resources on funding for home telehealth and telehealth in general are provided right here.

Funding Resources Listed here are the likely players, yes, but there’s nothing available outright for funding home telehealth—we all still have to do our homework!	Case Studies...What's Working Five providers championing the cause of home telehealth report on the need for the very specific focus on garnering community support—in dollars and spirit.
Look Homeward Liz Sheahan, BSW, MA, a grant writing expert (among many laudable hats she wears) at Ministry Home Health (Marshfield, WI), describes what it takes to get the needed funds and lock into a place on the home telehealth frontier.	Needed Directions To recommended background reading on home telehealth funding—past, present, and hopefully future!