Designed specifically for behavioral health, Iris Insights brings clinical, operational and financial data into a unified view of behavioral health operations. The offering integrates with EHR, scheduling, referral and billing systems, helping healthcare organizations better understand performance and identify areas for improvement.
Iris Insights is designed to help healthcare organizations:
Understand where patient demand is lost across the care journey.
Identify variation in provider productivity and workflows.
Surface billing, documentation and revenue gaps.
Track performance across access, operations and financial outcomes.
“Health systems are being asked to do more with behavioral health, but without the visibility to understand what’s working and where to improve,” said Andy Flanagan, CEO of Iris Telehealth. “Iris Insights reflects the next phase of our evolution, expanding how we support organizations with the intelligence they need to strengthen access, improve performance and build more sustainable behavioral health programs.”
Bringing that intelligence to health systems and community organizations at scale requires a different kind of commercial leadership. To lead that effort, Iris Telehealth has appointed Donna Robinson as Chief Growth Officer. She’s responsible for bringing Iris Telehealth’s integrated care delivery and intelligence capabilities to health systems and payers seeking a more connected, performance-oriented approach to behavioral health. Donna brings more than 25 years of experience leading teams across healthcare technology, life sciences and customer engagement organizations.
“Iris Telehealth is building what health systems increasingly need: a more connected, more intelligent foundation for behavioral health,” said Robinson. “What stands out is the opportunity to combine deep clinical expertise with insights that help organizations expand access, support care teams and strengthen performance over time.”
Together, Iris Insights and Robinson’s appointment underscore Iris Telehealth’s continued investment in helping health systems build stronger, more sustainable behavioral health programs through both care delivery and enhanced operational intelligence.
To learn more about Iris Telehealth and Iris Insights, visit IrisTelehealth.com.
About Iris Telehealth Iris Telehealth partners with healthcare organizations to design, build, and strengthen behavioral health programs within existing care environments. Guided by practicing clinicians, Iris integrates expert providers and thoughtfully designed care models into everyday workflows, expanding access to high‑quality behavioral health care where patients already receive care. With insight and measurement woven into every solution, Iris helps organizations support providers, improve care delivery, and achieve sustainable outcomes without adding unnecessary complexity.
Iris Insight Evolves Using Real-World Evidence to Deliver Patient Outcomes and Value-Based Care
Today, Iris Telehealth, a leading provider of telepsychiatry services, and Holmusk, a global leader in real-world evidence and data analytics for behavioral health, today announced a strategic partnership that brings together two advanced AI platforms to transform mental health care through clinical real-world data and localized insights.
The groundbreaking collaboration integrates Holmusk’s NeuroBlu platform with Iris Insights, Iris Telehealth’s business intelligence platform, creating a solution that provides healthcare organizations with behavioral health data specific to their local markets. This integration enables organizations to identify at-risk patient populations through advanced risk stratification capabilities, all accessible through an intuitive dashboard within the Iris Insights ecosystem.
Key objectives of the partnership include developing and evaluating programs that use data to demonstrate improved outcomes and customer value and enhancing the prediction of patient risk using robust mental health data and applying natural language processing (NLP) as well as artificial intelligence (AI).
“This partnership with Holmusk represents a significant leap forward in our mission to transform behavioral healthcare delivery,” said Andy Flanagan, CEO of Iris Telehealth. “By integrating Holmusk’s world-class NeuroBlu platform into our Iris Insights system, we’re empowering healthcare organizations with the real-world evidence and analytics they need to make informed decisions, improve patient outcomes, and build truly sustainable behavioral health programs.”
Holmusk’s NeuroBlu AI platform will provide the analytical foundation for enhanced predictive modeling and data-driven insights within the Iris Insights ecosystem. This capability will be particularly valuable for health systems seeking to expand their behavioral health services while managing costs and improving clinical outcomes through localized, data-driven insights.
“This partnership brings together two complementary strengths – deep data science capabilities and direct clinical delivery – to drive meaningful innovation in behavioral health,” said Nawal Roy, CEO at Holmusk. “Together, we’re creating new opportunities for healthcare organizations to demonstrate value while improving the lives of patients who need mental health support.”
The partnership comes at a critical time as healthcare organizations nationwide face increasing demand for behavioral health services, clinician shortages, and pressure to demonstrate measurable outcomes. By providing actionable insights derived from real-world data tailored to specific markets and populations, the Iris Telehealth-Holmusk collaboration will help healthcare leaders navigate these challenges while building more effective and sustainable mental health programs that serve their communities’ unique needs.
“This recognition validates our mission to expand access to quality behavioral healthcare through innovative telehealth solutions.
Our high performance score reflects the dedication of our clinical team and the trust our healthcare partners place in us. As mental healthcare needs grow, we remain committed to supporting health systems and communities with sustainable, technology-enabled solutions that improve patient outcomes.”
Andy Flanagan, CEO of Iris Telehealth
The Best in KLAS report recognizes software and services companies that excel in helping healthcare professionals improve patient care. Best in KLAS awards are given to healthcare IT providers who demonstrate outstanding commitment and partnerships in the industry.
Iris Telehealth earned the #1 category position with an overall performance score of 94.6. Over 15 unique individual buyers and users of Iris Telehealth completed the KLAS research survey in 2024, which ranks technology providers across five categories including loyalty, operations, relationship, services and value. A full ratings breakdown is available in the 2025 Best in KLAS Awards – Software and Services Report.
As we reflect on 2024, we feel an immense sense of pride for the work our partners and providers have done to help more people get the quality care they need and deserve.
Together, we delivered timely and effective behavioral health care to 1.4 million patients at 210 organizations across 39 states.
2024 was also a year of innovation, marked by the launch of our new service, Virtual Clinic, designed to seamlessly address gaps in outpatient behavioral health care.
As we look to 2025, we are eager to continue delivering high-quality care that positively impacts the way organizations deliver behavioral health care to their communities.
Be sure to watch our video below to learn more about Iris Telehealth’s impact in 2024.
If you’d like to learn more about Virtual Clinic, click this link. Or, if you’d like to talk with someone about how you can transform your organization’s approach to behavioral health delivery, contact us here.
A comprehensive care model and AI-enabled platform for long-term behavioral health program success.
Today, Iris Telehealth, a leading provider of transformative behavioral health services for health systems and community healthcare organizations, announced the launch of its Virtual Clinic and Iris Insights platforms. This comprehensive suite of services empowers healthcare organizations to seamlessly integrate behavioral healthcare into their patient journeys, addressing the critical need for increased access to quality mental health services.
Approximately 40% of US adults and adolescents with mental health disorders currently don’t receive care. “The Virtual Clinic and Iris Insights represent a significant leap forward in bridging this gap,” said Andy Flanagan, CEO of Iris Telehealth. “By combining a patient-centric virtual care model with data-driven insights, we are enabling healthcare organizations to deliver timely, high-quality behavioral health services that improve patient outcomes and drive program success.”
Virtual Clinic: Integrated behavioral healthcare for all
The Virtual Clinic offers a comprehensive care model that seamlessly integrates with existing workflows to fill behavioral health gaps in patient journeys. It provides three key pillars to support successful behavioral health integration:
Patient-centered care: Enables patients of all ages and acuities to receive virtual behavioral health services, improving access and experience.
Provider support: Equips healthcare providers with the tools and resources they need to deliver effective behavioral healthcare.
Technology integration: Leverages existing workflows and electronic medical records (EMR) systems for smooth integration with the care team.
Iris Insights: Data-driven platform for behavioral health optimization
Integrated within the Virtual Care model, Iris Insights leverages an AI-powered platform backed by clinical expertise to optimize the financial, clinical and operational aspects of a behavioral health strategy. It includes the following modules:
Behavioral Health Command Center: Provides a central hub for collecting and visualizing key operational, clinical and financial data, enabling continuous improvement and data-driven decision-making.
Revenue Cycle Analytics & Benchmarking: Delivers actionable insights on revenue cycle management, highlighting areas for improvement and providing national and local benchmarks for comparison.
By combining advanced technology with clinical expertise, the Virtual Clinic and Iris Insights offer comprehensive solutions that address the pressing need for accessible and affordable behavioral healthcare.
This innovative approach not only improves patient outcomes but also positions healthcare organizations for long-term financial sustainability. By driving top-line revenue, optimizing margins and reducing costs, these solutions enable providers to deliver high-quality mental health services while ensuring the financial viability of their programs. Iris Telehealth is committed to partnering with healthcare organizations to reshape the future of behavioral healthcare and ensure that every individual has the opportunity to thrive.
About Iris Telehealth
Iris Telehealth helps healthcare organizations consistently increase access to quality behavioral health care for their patients by providing the care models, clinicians, analytics and expertise to build a sustainable behavioral health program. With clinical grounding and emphasis on human relationships, Iris Telehealth identifies best-fit providers for each unique organization and ensures long-term commitment to meeting their partner’s needs, allowing them to provide the highest quality care to their patients and community.
Virtual behavioral health care leader accelerates and expands a transformational care model that ensures all health system patients receive integrated behavioral health care.
Iris Telehealth, a leading provider of virtual behavioral health services for health systems and community health centers across the U.S., announced today the expansion of its Bridge Care Services program, a Behavioral Health Integration model backed by clinical and operational expertise to solve ambulatory care at scale and deliver long-term clinical and financial outcomes for hospitals and health systems.
Health systems are struggling to keep up with the overwhelming demand for behavioral healthcare within their communities. The Bridge Care Services model enable health systems to meet their patient needs at-scale while achieving measurement-based outcomes and optimizing reimbursement for a financially sustainable program.
“We believe providing integrated behavioral healthcare is a critical component to patient care,” said Andy Flanagan, CEO of Iris Telehealth. “The reality is behavioral health care should be infused into every health system patient journey. Whether a patient just received a cancer diagnosis, is an expecting mother, or is experiencing escalating anxiety at a primary care appointment, integrating behavioral health care will drive better patient care and eliminate the need for a patient to look elsewhere to fill gaps in their care needs.”
Building on Existing Commercial Success
Bridge Care Services has seen notable commercial success due to its ability to close a critical gap in care while delivering improved patient outcomes, physician satisfaction, and patient satisfaction – all in a financially sustainable and scalable way.
Iris is building on their proven model to add further clinical and financial value in three key ways:
Iris is adding clinical prioritization via a risk-stratified patient registry coupled with clinical review before patients experience an LCSW-led navigation assessment to determine their care plan. This navigation process is designed to reduce unnecessary ED utilization and ensure patients who need care the most, receive care first.
Iris has built an EMR-certified toolkit to build a virtual command center, backed by clinical and operational expertise, to ensure sustainable clinical and financial outcomes right within the system’s EMR.
Iris is offering the optionality for short and extended-bridge models, for all patient acuities, depending on a health systems existing behavioral health network. The goal is to ensure that the existing network is fully leveraged, ensuring all patients receive timely access to quality care.
Business Model Innovation
A challenge to scaling behavioral healthcare services in the past has been the inability to make programs profitable. The Bridge Care Services model solves this core challenge by aligning incentives, driving top-of-license care, optimizing reimbursement, and driving down the total cost of care. Iris customers have more than doubled their behavioral health revenue while delivering positive operating margins.
Scaling Proven Results
Bridge Care Services customers show an ability to reduce referral queues by 83% within the first six months, a 38% reduction in depression symptoms, and an ability to redirect 40% of psychiatry referrals to a more cost-effective, clinically appropriate level of care.
This program was built on Iris’s experience delivering behavioral health care in partnership with over 210 healthcare organizations across the country with over 450 dedicated providers. Additionally, Iris has held Joint Commission accreditation for behavioral health since 2019, demonstrating the highest achievement awarded to a behavioral healthcare group and commitment to meeting quality measures in provider selection, patient care, compliance, and regulatory standards.
About Iris Telehealth
Iris Telehealth helps healthcare organizations consistently increase access to quality mental health care for their patients by implementing innovative, evidence-based care models and providing the clinicians, staff support, and knowledge to build a financially sustainable telepsychiatry program. With clinical grounding and emphasis on human relationships, Iris Telehealth identifies best-fit providers for each unique organization and ensures long-term commitment to meeting their partner’s needs, allowing them to provide the highest quality care to their patients and community. For more information, please visit iristelehealth.com.
At Iris Telehealth, we deliver quality, sustainable behavioral health care to patients all across the country. If you’re an organization looking to help increase access to behavioral health care in your community, visit our services page or check out our FAQ.
KLAS Research recently released their 2023 First Look report on Iris Telehealth’s telepsychiatry services for hospitals and health systems.
This report examines the experience of clients who utilize Iris Telehealth on a large scale across their organization and breaks down some of the key outcomes we’re driving for our partners and how our partnership works.
Here are just a few insights from the report in our partners’ own words:
“The firm isn’t made up of corporate monsters. They live and breathe their work. . . . We constantly have follow-ups, and I have point people to call if we need to make things better. The firm is really attentive to their clients’ needs and is engaged because they understand. They are healthcare professionals. They are doctors trying to solve a problem in behavioral health across the country.” —VP, June 2023
“One of Iris Telehealth’s strengths is communication, whether that be followup communication, check-ins, or reviews to touch base about provider performance. Also, the firm is very easily accessible, responsive, and willing to work through any challenges that arise. It has been a wonderful experience to work with Iris Telehealth, and we will continue to use the firm.” —Director, June 2023
“The firm allows us to keep our inpatient beds in full operation across our company because the firm covers our providers’ vacations and absent days. Since the service is virtual, the firm can cover more than one site at a time. There is great flexibility. The clinical team identifies the firm as a part of their team. Even though the firm’s people work virtually, the people still make really good connections.” —VP, June 2023
“The firm has done a nice job of listening to what we need and coming up with solutions. They have been very adaptive. On the innovation front, though, the firm has been a very strong partner. I would definitely do more business with them. They have filled our need for the on-demand service.” —VP, June 2023
“One of our main goals was to establish access to care and increase our level of access because we had more patients than we had capacity. Iris Telehealth has certainly helped us achieve that goal by adding capacity within our facility, which in turn has allowed us to see patients more quickly. That helps us . . . continue to have a more comprehensive care team approach.” —Executive, June 2023
Inifinity Health, an FQHC in Iowa, began leveraging telehealth services to expand access to behavioral health services throughout their rural community. In 2022, Infinity Health partnered with Iris Telehealth to support those services and to further invest in telehealth.
Infinity Health has seen first-hand the benefits of telepsychiatry for their community and plan to continue utilizing it to support their patient populations.
Check out their video below to learn more about how their patients have benefited from telemental health services.
At Iris Telehealth, we ensure your organization has everything it needs for a successful behavioral health program. Partnering with Iris Telehealth means your organization will have access to industry experts who will take the burden of building and optimizing an effective behavioral health program. Contact us today, and our team will work with your organization to provide effective psychiatric care and ensure the long-term care of your patients.
The omnibus bill is a major step forward for people seeking mental health treatment.
The bill signed by President Biden in December 2022 puts a least $10 billion into behavioral health in new year. The bill will extend telehealth flexibilities for Medicare beneficiaries, buprenorphine deregulation, and put more money towards expanding workforce development programs in the behavioral health space.
Our very own Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Thomas Milam, broke down everything you need to know about the omnibus bill and all it entails.
Presentation transcript
Good afternoon, everyone. I’m glad to have folks join us to discuss some key takeaways from the omnibus bill that President Biden signed at the end of December 2022. It was a very good bill for mental healthcare and telehealth care and very timely with several things going on in our country. I want to talk about some of the bill’s key components and their impact on mental health and substance use disorder treatment. Then, drill down on a couple of areas that I think are particularly important to watch as they unfold in terms of the legislation and how the medical community interprets certain bills.
Let’s first remember that as of the airing of this presentation, the public health emergency started on January 31st, 2020. We’re almost three years fully in, and it’s been renewed every 90 days since it began. There was anticipation that maybe it would end this January, but it does look like it’s likely going to officially end as a public health emergency in April. It’s estimated to end around April 11th, 2023.
There was a lot of concern about what would happen at that point. It was often called the ‘cliff that patients would fall off of’ in terms of telehealth legislation that enabled patients to get the care that they needed and for providers to offer that care through telehealth strategies. There was concern that it would abruptly end, which would really be horrible for those of us who have either been on the receiving or giving end of telehealth. We’re very grateful for the omnibus bill.
Overview of the omnibus bill
This bill was originally called the Consolidated Appropriations Bill or ACT of 2022, which was going to extend all the current telehealth regulations and flexibilities that are in place by 151 days after the end of the public health emergency. If it ended on April 11th, that would extend to September 11th, 2023. This new omnibus spending package goes by other names: House Resolution 2617, the Performance Enhancement Reform Act, or the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023. Out of all these different names, we’ll call it the omnibus bill. This bill has allocated $1.7 trillion to multiple areas of discretionary spending in our government, which is pretty extraordinary. It does a lot of other things too. It extends the public health emergency error flexibilities to the end of 2024 – two years. We have two years to work on telehealth legislation and get things more secure. I’m going to talk about some of the specifics of that.
During these next two years, congress will continue to review claims coming in through Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). They will look at the types of services offered, where they are offered, who’s providing them, where the patients are located, and how long those services are needed. A lot of data is going to be gathered. The hope for us in the telehealth industry is that during these two years and going forward, the whole telehealth industry will coalesce around some core features of how healthcare’s provided.
I’m really excited about it because I think at Iris, we’ve been doing telehealth for over 10 years and have seen the impact that telebehavioral health and telemental health has on communities around the country where access is very limited. I’m really excited about this extension for two more years and about the dozens of bills that are at the state and federal level to make many of the flexibilities permanent law for how healthcare is delivered.
Funding expansion details
Let’s talk about a couple of things. The funding expansion in the omnibus spill includes $7.5 billion from Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). SAMHSA oversees spending on mental health and substance use disorder care. Some really wonderful things are being funded through that $7.5 billion from SAMHSA. Those include mental health block grants for screening, prevention, and treatment of mental health and substance use disorders. The CCBHC model, the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic model expansion, is great for accountability for organizations that are doing behavioral health and how they measure and provide services.
There’s also expansions of children’s mental health services and school-based resources. There’s more money put into suicide prevention, behavioral health, and crisis prevention, including the 988 hotline, which has been fantastic and needs to continue to run and be serviced and monitored.
There are also additional dollars for mental health crisis response grants. There are a lot of things at the community level. There are some other things that are really important parts most people might not think of. There’s funding to increase 200 more slots for residency and fellowship training, and half of those 200 slots are for psychiatry and fellowships related to psychiatry. That’s a big win for those who are thinking about going into psychiatry as a field, which is a wonderful field. Expansion of services by other services through telehealth, including physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, and audiology – All those things are going to continue to be funded through telehealth, which is really important.
There’s also funding towards medicine that involves a lot of training and supervision of trainees. Trainees will be allowed to continue to be supervised through direct supervision, telehealth, or telemedicine initiatives. That continues many things we’ve become accustomed to during public health emergencies.
Overview of geographical and regulatory details
In terms of telehealth and the provision of telehealth and behavioral health related to mental health and substance use disorder treatments. There are two areas that I want to point out: geography and regulatory areas. Let’s talk about geography first. This omnibus bill offers a temporary suspension and continued suspension of the geographic site requirements for providing care for the next two years.
Historically in medicine, you had to drive to a clinic, hospital, or facility to get care because that’s a site of care. And you could only get care there. Your doctors, nurses, and others providing care could only be reimbursed if the patient went there. This change to taking away the site requirement is huge. For much of my practice life, many patients in rural areas still did not qualify to get telehealth in their areas because they weren’t within these strict geographic areas of care. That’s a huge change and win for telehealth and patients needing telehealth. Another change is not allowing the linkage of telehealthcare only to designated healthcare shortage areas. Because we used to talk about doing telehealth in healthcare shortage areas, that’s really important. But in the public health emergency, every place was designated a healthcare shortage area, which really is the truth. Our country needs behavioral healthcare. It’s in short supply. I don’t know that there’s much going back to see it any other way. But those are some important geographic provisions.
This bill also allows federally qualified healthcare clinics (FQHCs) and rural healthcare clinics to remain eligible for mental health services is really important. Previously, many of them could not get telehealth reimbursement, particularly for mental health services. At Iris, we’ve partnered with dozens and dozens of FQHCs and rural health clinics across the country. They’re often in areas of real shortage, real need where mental health access is important. Those FQHCs and rural health clinics can remain eligible for those services. And interestingly, this is the language of things. It doesn’t apply to telehealth per se, but it is allowed, and for reimbursement in care under interactive real-time telecommunications technology, that’s what it’s called instead of telehealth.
So it’s still allowed. Like telehealth, it’s called something different. But that’s really exciting, and we love partnering with rural health clinics that provide physical and behavioral health and substance use disorder treatment. That’s wonderful.
Another provision geographically is allowing the patient’s home or domicile, if they live in a homeless shelter or recovery center, to remain an eligible healthcare site so people can get care in their homes. There are certain requirements around that that are gonna be teased out a little bit more, and we’ll talk about that in a minute. Also, audio-only services were really key in the early days of the pandemic. And for folks that didn’t have the bandwidth or data plans to do a lot of video interviews to see those patients through audio-only, particularly for substance use disorder treatments and prescribing buprenorphine and lifesaving treatments, doing it through audio only was really important.
Now, as a doc, I’m not used to talking to my patients on the phone a lot, so it’s different, and the use of it has gone down. However, it’s still really critical for many patients in rural areas that don’t have bandwidth or coverage plans to be able to call them and talk to them on the phone and keep them, well, keep them in treatment, keep them engaged with their therapists at other services. It’s going to be really important. What’s going to be required of that is that doctors and patients have to determine that audio-only services or telehealth services are going to be critically necessary to them getting care and staying well. As providers, we will need to better document in our notes why we’re doing telehealth, that it’s more than just out of convenience for the patient or me.
It’s because the patient and the healthcare provider agree that telehealth, either through video or audio, is critical to them getting the care they need to stay well and not decompensate. So it’s good to start having some templates that telehealth providers put in their notes to support and show CMS that this particular care that’s offered through this telehealth avenue, audio-only or video, is being done because it’s critically necessary and not just out of convenience. That’s important. Switching from geographical to regulatory issues, though all these are somewhat regulatory, there are a couple of things to point out. First, as folks know, during the public health emergency, there was some flexibility about using secure video platforms that may not have been HIPAA compliant and other communications with patients to keep them well.
But that’s ending. We need to get back to using HIPAA-compliant secure video platforms, and anything where we’re communicating protected or patient health information needs to be a HIPAA-compliant form. There’s going to be more scrutiny of that. It’s important to make sure that everything you’re using in terms of seeing patients or communicating with patients and with other caregivers about patients is done through a HIPAA-compliant platform. And there are many, many more available.
Another interesting piece is essentially the in-person telehealth requirements. Now those have been debated, and there was concern about the public health emergency ending and people not being able to see their telehealth provider anymore unless they saw him, her, or them in person. This requirement is odd because we treat people where a provider may be in one state, the patients in another part of the country, and the providers licensed to treat patients there.
But this bill says that you have to see that patient in person within six months of seeing that patient through telehealth. How is that supposed to happen? It just seemed odd. Additionally, every 12 months after that, you’re supposed to see the provider in person. So there are some misunderstandings about it and some clarification needed on behalf of congress around one – does it have to be the provider you’re seeing or a provider in that specialty or working with their primary care provider? Do those providers you might normally see in person in the town you live in satisfy the in-person requirement? When your telehealth provider for, particularly for mental health or substance use disorder treatment, might not even live anywhere near your town. So will that be allowed? Hopefully, I think so, but that requirement is waived for two more years.
It’s also interesting that the in-person requirement is six months before starting treatment, and every 12 months is only for a pure mental health condition. And this is what I think really struck me as odd about this regulation. And this is not just part of the omnibus bill. It’s part of previous telehealth bills that have been put forth by congress. But it’s odd because you can do telehealth where you need it if you have a physical health issue. You can do it if you have a substance use disorder, mental health and a substance use disorder called comorbid or dual diagnosis. But essentially, these requirements for seeing your provider in person, your telehealth provider, only applied if you had a pure mental health condition. That seems to go against the grain of fairness and parody we’ve come to know in medicine, where physical and behavioral health were seen as equal. I think some legislative changes to that are going to be coming.
Ryan Haight Act related issues
The last thing in terms of regulatory issues I’m going to talk about will be things related to the Ryan Haight Act. One of the things that’s important to keep in mind is the Ryan Haight Act, officially called the Ryan Haight Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act of 2008. It’s been around for 15 years, and it was generally meant to regulate pharmacies, particularly rogue online pharmacies, from filling prescriptions where the doctor couldn’t be identified clearly, the location of the provider, the location of the patient, things weren’t identified clearly. That’s what happened through Ryan Haight and why this act became enacted. What we’ve come to see it to mean is, essentially, doctors cannot prescribe any controlled substances by telehealth. And, that’s really a misunderstanding of the intent, I believe that the DEA had for this act.
Yet, that’s the culture in which it’s been interpreted. There’s been concerns about the public health emergency ending and then patients not being able to get the medications that have kept them well. And when we’re talking about controlled substances, we’re talking about pain medicines and buprenorphine, suboxone, and things like that. But we’re also talking about other pain medicines that are commonly used as well as benzodiazepines and stimulant medications that are used to treat ADHD. So all those potentially could have limitations on the prescribing of them through telemedicine unless certain things are met. There have been exceptions to that all along, and particularly exceptions during the public health emergency. That was one of the main exceptions to the Ryan Haight Act.
The in-person requirement is one of the things that was also waived during the public health emergency. You did not have to see somebody in person to have that provider prescribe you a controlled substance. So people with opiate use disorders as well as people being treated with stimulants for ADHD and other health conditions for which they’re used and people needing benzodiazepines for panic attacks, anxieties, seizures, things like that they’ve all been able to get the care through telehealth and kept people well. That’s been critical to their care. You can’t imagine that just stopping. There’s been increased pressure on the DEA to clarify one of the other exceptions to the Ryan Haight, which is providers that are designated as having a special registration with the DEA. There’s a lot of confusion around that and what that actually means.
But essentially, what was laid out in the Ryan Haight act is the DEA had a special registration process that allowed providers then to prescribe or e-prescribe controlled substances via telemedicine. So far, though, in the last 13 years, the DEA has never outlined what that special registration process is. I will say with the public health emergency anticipated to officially end in April. There is more pressure than ever on the DEA to make clear what this special registration process is.
Currently, you can go to DEA-registered clinics and hospitals and continue to prescribe through telemedicine for those types of organizations. But there are a lot of clinic types and different organizations where patients are and seeing them through telemedicine and telehealth platforms, where some would say that violates the intent of the Ryan Haight Act. We do need some leadership and some clarity from the DEA, which is part of the Department of Justice.
And in talking to people around the country right now, everybody’s waiting. They hope any day, the DEA will come out with stuff. There’s a lot of pressure on them – presidents, congress have mandated them to clarify this rule, and yet they’ve failed to do so for 13 years.
Omnibus bill takeaways
There are other organizations that are trying to continue to make sure patients get the care they need. SAMSHA has proposed a rule to permanently allow prescribing providers to offer buprenorphine for opiate use disorders because it’s a life-saving treatment. Particularly with the opiate epidemic, which is still one of the main epidemics we’re facing all over the world. But I would like to see, and I think many patients and providers would like to see the exceptions not just for buprenorphine, but for everyone with a mental health condition, substance use disorder, who is getting care that may require a controlled substance that they can continue to stay on that and stay well and not decompensate, not end up back in the hospital or, or worse.
In reading the pulse of legislators for the last 10 years and being part of mental health, behavioral health, and telehealth, I would say there are a lot of wonderful people that get it, that understand this issue. It’s got bipartisan support. Most of the things about expanding telehealth post-public health emergency have bipartisan support. But there’s some trouble with congress getting together and passing meaningful legislation right now. I’m really hopeful that in the next couple of years we’re going to work through some of those roadblocks in congress and get some of these lifesaving measures passed.
In general, the omnibus bill has been very positive, very good for telehealth and for mental health. There are still some more updates that need to occur, but we’re really moving in the right direction. Thank you for your attention today. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to myself or any of us at Iris Telehealth. Thank you.
At Iris Telehealth, we deliver quality, sustainable behavioral health care to patients all across the country. If you’re an organization looking to help increase access to mental health care in your community, visit our services page or check out our FAQ.
