what are the relative benefits and risks of treating patients via telemedicine/telehealth going forward?

As discussed in the following article, Early Impact Of CMS Expansion Of Medicare Telehealth During COVID-19, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has taken unprecedented action to expand telehealth for Medicare beneficiaries during the COVID pandemic. Since people were advised to stay at home to reduce risk of exposure of COVID-19, there was an urgency to increase access to telehealth services to help people who need routine care and allow beneficiaries to remain in their homes. One of the first actions CMS took under that authority was to expand Medicare telehealth on March 17, 2020, allowing all beneficiaries to receive telehealth in any location, including their homes. Subsequently, CMS announced additional temporary rules and waivers to expand the scope of Medicare telehealth services, making it easier for more types of health care providers to offer a wider range of telehealth services to beneficiaries across the country. CMS observed immediate, dramatic increases in telehealth services.

Please answer the following question, citing all sources referenced in APA format. Your response should be approximately 4-6 pages double-spaced.

1. With these transformative changes unleashed over the last several months, it’s hard to imagine merely reverting to the way things were before. As the country re-opens, CMS is reviewing the flexibilities the administration has introduced and their early impact on Medicare beneficiaries to inform whether these changes should be made a permanent part of the Medicare program. Given the preliminary data that has been reported through increased utilization of telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic, what are the relative benefits and risks of treating patients via telemedicine/telehealth going forward? Please address any regulations/policies that should be put in place to further utilization as well as any safeguards that should be implemented to address any potential risks for utilizing telehealth services.