Colorado Medicaid Program Supports New Teleneurology Project

Colorado’s Medicaid program is funding a three-year telehealth project aimed at offering virtual visits with neurologists to patients with Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and other movement orders.

The University of Colorado’s Movement Disorders Center will spearhead the teleneurology program, which will also include a Project ECHO telemedicine platform offering primary care providers throughout the state access to specialists at the UC Anschutz Medical Campus.

"Providing the best care for persons with movement disorders requires specialty knowledge that isn't typically available in rural Colorado communities," Maureen Leehey, MD, director of the Colorado Movement Disorders Center, said in a press release. "Many people with movement disorders don't know they have a disease that can be treated. They think their symptoms are just a natural part of the aging process, but they are not. If your coffee cup shakes as you hold it, you might have a movement disorder." 

The program, called "Tremors & Tumbles: Better Care for Movement Disorders," is funded by Health First Colorado, the state’s Medicaid agency. ECHO Colorado, the statewide telemedicine program, will manage the provider education platform.

Parkinson’s disease reportedly affects more than 1 million Americans, while conservative efforts put the number of Americans affected by Huntington’s disease at 400,000. Because the diseases are progressive and affect mind, mood and movement, care management and coordination is crucial.

Connecting these patients and their caregivers with neurologists and other specialists on a telehealth platform allows for frequent and continuous treatment, rather than episodic visits to a doctor’s office or clinic. In addition, several programs are using mHealth platform, including wearables, and remote patient monitoring services to improve care management and treatment at home.

The program may be especially helpful to patients now that Roche and Wave Life Sciences announced the end clinical trials of once-promising gene-targeting therapies for Huntington's disease due to disappointing results.

"The failure of the … clinical trials underscores how important it is to do what we know can be done to help persons with these movement disorders," Leehey said in the press release. "Getting people with movement disorders, and their primary care doctors, consultations with neurologists at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus is a significant step in the right direction because research has shown people with these disorders are able to obtain a higher level of health if they have access to specialty physicians."