The COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) spurred a seismic shift in the delivery of health care, including services provided to children and adolescents. Pediatric providers rapidly scaled up their telehealth capabilities in response to the PHE in order to reduce disease transmission and ensure continuity of care for children and adolescents. Temporary Medicaid policies enacted at the state level facilitated the widespread use of telehealth during the PHE. State Medicaid agencies recognize that telehealth is now a more accepted, and in some cases preferred, method of care delivery and are focused on developing their post-PHE Medicaid telehealth policies.

As states look to the future of their Medicaid telehealth policies, there are opportunities to maintain access to certain pediatric services delivered through telehealth for children and adolescents, including those with special health care needs.

In “Maintaining Telehealth Access to Medicaid-Covered Pediatric Services After the End of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency,” an issue brief prepared in partnership with the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health, Manatt Health provides a brief overview of the pediatric telehealth response to COVID-19. The issue brief also outlines temporary state policy flexibilities that improved access to pediatric telehealth services during the PHE and highlights opportunities for permanent state policy expansions to maintain access to pediatric telehealth services within Medicaid after the PHE ends.

To download the full issue brief, click here.

The issue brief is one of a three-part series focused on improving access to Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program and Marketplace coverage at the end of the PHE. Click here to read “Strategies to Ensure Continuous Coverage for Children at the End of the Public Health Emergency” and here to read “Working With Community-Based Organizations and Individuals With Lived Experience to Support Continuity of Coverage at the End of the Public Health Emergency.”