Interstate Telehealth Use By Medicare Beneficiaries Before And After COVID-19 Licensure Waivers, 2017-20.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, all fifty states and Washington, D.C., passed licensure waivers that allowed patients to participate in telehealth visits with out-of-state clinicians (that is, interstate telehealth). Because many of these temporary flexibilities have expired or are set to expire, we analyzed trends in interstate telehealth use by Medicare beneficiaries during 2017-20, which covers the period both directly before and during the first year of the pandemic. Although the volume of interstate telehealth use increased in 2020, out-of-state telehealth made up a small share of all outpatient visits (0.8 percent) and of all telehealth visits (5 percent) overall. For individual states, out-of-state telehealth made up between 0.2 percent and 9.3 percent of all outpatient visits. We found that most out-of-state telehealth use was for established patient care and that a higher percentage of out-of-state telehealth users lived in rural areas compared with beneficiaries who did not receive care outside of their state (28 percent versus 23 percent). Our collective findings suggest that the elimination of pandemic licensure flexibilities will affect different states to varying degrees and will also affect the delivery of care for both established patients and rural patients.

A Diagnostic Biomarker for Pediatric Generalized Anxiety Disorder Using the Error-Related Negativity.

The error-related negativity (ERN) is a negative deflection in the event-related potential following a mistake that is a putative biomarker of anxiety. The study assessed the ERN as a diagnostic biomarker using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses in 96 cases with anxiety disorders (AD) and 96 matched healthy controls (HC) ages 8 to 18 years. Forty-one cases had generalized anxiety disorder (GAD); 55 cases had other anxiety disorders (OAD) without GAD. ERN amplitude was significantly increased in AD cases compared to HC. The area under the curve (AUC) in the ROC analysis was 0.64, indicating the ERN is an inadequate diagnostic test for AD altogether. The ERN was significantly increased in cases with either GAD or OAD compared to HC. The AUC in ROC analyses with GAD and OAD was 0.75 and 0.56, respectively, suggesting the ERN provides an adequate diagnostic test for GAD but not for OAD.