Disability

We Need Your Insights on Telehealth and Telemedicine

October 11, 2016 • By

Reading Time: 2 Minutes

Last Updated: August 19, 2021

60thblog-oct-11What is the National Disability Forum?

The National Disability Forum is an open conversation where members of the public, community leaders, and Social Security employees come together to talk about the disability programs. Social Security uses these meetings to listen to you and your community leaders so we can learn what’s important to you.

Your input is important to Social Security. We use what we learn from you and your community to improve our rules and policies to help people with disabilities. The National Disability Forum does not replace Social Security’s normal rule-making process, but it does help us hear from you before we make any new rules. Learn more about the National Disability Forum here.

Our Next National Disability Forum will Focus on Telehealth and Telemedicine

Telehealth includes a variety of ways to use video and other technology to enhance healthcare and related information delivery.  Telemedicine involves clinical services provided by interactive communication, most commonly a video, between a patient and a practitioner at different locations.

We want to learn more about telehealth and telemedicine to determine if there are ways to use them to advance our disability programs.

What can you do?

You can help us by considering the following questions:

  • How can we use telemedicine or telehealth in the claims procedure to better serve individuals with disabilities?
  • How can telemedicine or telehealth help speed our decision-making process at all levels?
  • How else might we use telemedicine or telehealth to improve the administration of our programs, and what factors should we consider?

You can share your insights on these question by posting right here on our blog or at our IdeaScale online tool, or by registering to attend the forum on October 27. Social Security is here to help secure today and tomorrow, and together we can strengthen our disability programs.

 

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About the Author

Jim Borland, Assistant Deputy Commissioner, Communications

Jim Borland, Assistant Deputy Commissioner, Communications

Comments

  1. PatientMD

    Telehealth and telemedicine both are the same and important for the patient to treat and recover virtually. nice blog post, thanks for sharing..

  2. OnCallMD

    Telehealth greatly helps people to access healthcare.Thank you for the blog.

  3. Joan S.

    Keep hearing about telehealth telemedicine etc.
    So far I have not seen how to make the contact for this service.

    • Vonda V.

      Hi Joan. Thank you for using our blog. The Medicare web page on Telehealth has additional details which you may find helpful. Thank you.

  4. chironhealth

    hi thanks for the information

  5. Adrienne M.

    Your customer service is very bad also your on-line service is no better when needing help with password rest there is no one to help. Why start something that does not work? Also the longer than normal wait times by phone is no good to

    • Ray F.

      Hello Adrienne. We are sorry to hear you did not receive the level of customer service you expected, and that you had difficulty reaching someone by phone. We may have been experiencing higher than normal call volume. We can understand your frustration.
      If you are still having trouble accessing your my Social Security account, please call our dedicated “my Social Security-Hotline”. To reach this hotline, call toll free 1-800-772-1213 (TTY 1-800-325-0778), Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. At the voice prompt, say “helpdesk”.
      To retrieve or change your account username or password for a my Social Security account click here. Sometimes you may have to contact your local Social Security office.
      Generally when calling our toll free number, you may experience a shorter wait time when you call later during the day or later in the week. We hope you try us again, thanks!

  6. Arthur J.

    What are some of the better part d benefits for ssdi under 65?

    • Ray F.

      Hello Arthur. Please visit Medicare.gov for information on this topic. Thanks!

  7. Evan S.

  8. cris

    For disabled people who have rare and orphan diseases this service MUST be utilized. Many patients can not get the proper treatment they need without telemedicine and related services because they can’t travel far and many times you can have only a handful of specialist who actually understand and treat the specific disease. Even allowing an appointment over the phone in the presence of your primary care Dr., in the Dr.’s office would save the SSA money in the long run. It all looks good on paper but when you actually try to utilize the service……even medicare CSR reps can’t find info on it. If I have to go to my PCP, he has to refer me to a specialist he thinks can handle my symptom but in actuality that specialist will try to treat me using the same general care he or she uses for all of their patient but it doesn’t work for me b/c I am so different I don’t fit into the box. They can prescribe medicine that works well for 99% of patients but it will cause adverse and devastating affects for me. Now my out of pocket expenses are obscene and i have to go without any accurate treatment and meds all the while getting worse and worse. Do the math for this type of scenario b/c it is a must.

  9. Tony S.

    Sanders, Tony J. Children. Hospitals & Asylums HA-8-12-16 http://www.title24uscode.org/children.doc

    United States population estimates are disputed between the Census and Social Security Administration regarding a total US population between 324 million and 330 million, respectively, a difference of 2 percent, in 2015 and 2016. The under age 18 population is estimated between 73.7 million by the American Children Brief , 74.1 million by the US Census and 77.8 million by SSA. 74.9 million Baby Boomers were born 1946-64. 77 million children is the number. The Census has clearly erred with the 22.9% under age 18 revision in 2015 that destroyed the population pyramid and must return to 24% under age 18 used in the 2010 Census. Net population-growth is bolstered by 1 million annual net migrants. The United States has the highest birth rate (12.5 per 1,000 population), infant mortality rate (6.1 infant deaths per 1,000 live births and 8 under age 5 deaths per 1,000 ) and maternal mortality rate (32 deaths per 100,000) of any industrialized nation. Since the 1989 the annual estimate of about 4 million births is less than 4 million during Democratic administrations and more than 4 million during Republican administrations under the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (1961). More boy than girl babies have been issued social security cards every year since 1940. In 2015 51.2% of babies were boys and 48.8% were girls. However 50.9% of the 2010 census population are female and 49.1% are male. 25% of the world population attend school. 70-100 million people attend school in the United States. At $11,100 per pupil US education spending is the second highest in the world. In 1996 before 10 million Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC)/Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefits were cut 1996-2000, 15% of children were poor, about average for any American. Estimates on the number of poor children growing up in the United States have risen from 16 million to as high as 24 million, 20.8% and 31.2% of the 77 million Social Security Area child population respectively. Child poverty in the United States is the highest of any industrialized country. 22 – 33 percent of all children – live in families with incomes below the federal poverty level – $23,550 a year for a family of four. To end child poverty it is necessary to tax the rich the 12.4% OASDI tax on all their income, SSA would pay $777 child SSI benefits to 16-24 million poor children in the first year (2017?) and end poverty with 50 million SSI benefits by 2020. To keep ahead of consumer price inflation Federal minimum wage needs to be amended to $7.50 in 2017, to $7.75 in 2018 and 8.00 in 2019 and 3% every year thereafter.’ in one final sentence at 29USC§206(a)(1)(D).

    FDA Category A drugs that pose no fetal risks in human studies are penicillin, Ampicillin (Principen), cephalosporins, aminoglycosides, clindamycin (Cleocin Oral, Cleocin T), nitrofurantoin (Furadantin, Macrobid, macrodantin, and acyclovir (Zovirax). Amantadine (Symmetrel) for the flu and antipsychotic tic should probably be added to the short list of safe drugs for pregnant women and children. Ethosuximide seems to the safest anticonvulsant drug for pregnant women with epilepsy. Statins are okay for atherosclerosis but heart disease and hypertension are major causes of maternal mortality and pregnant women might be safely treated with Hawthorn the supreme herb for the heart, but it is contraindicated with most high blood pressure medicine. Hydralazine (Apreoline) is often the initial antihypertensive medication of choice, given in 5 mg increments intravenously until an acceptable blood pressure response is obtained. Other antihypertensive drugs used in emergencies are Nifedipine 10 mg po q 4-8 hr. Calculating the correct pediatric dosage of medicine is a ratio of the child’s weight to average adult weight of 70 kg or 150 lb. Clark’s rule is that the child’s dose = adult dose x child’s weight in kg / average adult weight 70 kg. Clindamycin (Cleocin) 350 mg pills for the treatment of Staphylococcus aureus in pregnant women and children under the age of 8 who cannot take doxycycline. The pediatric dose for Cleocin is estimated in the monograph to be in the 8-16 mg / kg/ d range. So a 20 kg child would want 160 mg to 320 mg of medicine daily in three or four divided doses of 40 mg to 100 mg. In that same time period an adult would want 1.2 g to 1.8 g in three or four doses of the 350 mg pill. For a 20 kg child the pill could be cut into quarters, and given three or four of the quarters daily, for 5 days. Antibiotic resistant Clostridium difficile can be treated in children with metronidazole (Flagyl ER) 200 mg or 400 mg tablets, but pregnant women cannot take metronidazole because it causes neural tube defects in the first trimester. Stonebreaker (Chanca piedra) treat gall and urinary stones overnight but cannot be used in pregnant women because it might be abortificent. Ampicillin (Principen) 250 g or 500 mg is the preferred drug for the treatment of pneumonia and meningitis in children under the age of 6 months. In the case of penicillin allergy or price Azithromycin (Zithromycin), the world’s best selling broad-spectrum antibiotic, is safe for pregnant women and children over the age of 6 months for the treatment of Streptococcus spp. The rest of the disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) every family should have to cure painful infections include Amantadine (Symmetrel) 100 mg for influenza Type A, 1% clotrimazole (athlete’s foot crème) for infections of the foot and shin and 1% hydrocortisone for allergies, rashes and aspergillosis.

  10. Genevie

    You actually make it appear really easy along with your presentation however I to find this topic to be really one thing that I feel I might by no means understand. It sort of feels too complex and very large for me. I’m taking a look forward to your subsequent put up, I will try to get the grasp of it!

    http://felonspace.com/index.php?do=/blog/41908/why-finding-out-all-there-is-to-know-on-remodeling-services-is-really-impor/

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