THE TELEHEALTH “REVOLUTION” & HOW IT FAILS TO TRANSFORM CARE FOR UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS
The outbreak of COVlD-19 led to the rapid adoption and expansion of telehealth services. Upon understanding telehealth’s potential to reach underserved populations, people began referring to this method of health care delivery as “revolutionary.” This reputation stuck, even though it quickly became obvious that telehealth utilization was more common among White, educated, and relatively wealthier individuals. Meanwhile, advocates of telehealth equity found that the benefits of telehealth did not adequately trickle down to lower-income and rural communities, nor to communities of color. Undocumented immigrants as a group were often ignored during considerations of these disparities.
This Article is among the first, even within interdisciplinary scholarship, to highlight undocumented immigrants and their (in)ability to access telehealth services. lt begins with a discussion of federal and state immigration policies that govern health care access for immigrants and proceeds to analyze immigrants’ health care needs and enhanced vulnerability during the pandemic. lt then discusses four areas in which an immigrant’s undocumented status makes telehealth services harder to access: (1) insurance and affordability, (2) fears of privacy breaches and surveillance, (3) access to technology and digital skills, and (4) limited English language proficiency. This Article concludes by recommending changes to state and federal immigration policies that may help undocumented immigrants realize the novel and innovative ways to access health care which were promised by the telehealth revolution.
Author: Asees Bhasin
PDF: http://ncjolt.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2022/10/Bhasin-Final.pdf
Volume 24, Issue 1