Increasing Access to Specialist Expertise in Rural Maine Via Virtual Curbside Consults

This presentation will describe how Community Care Partnership of Maine, a 22-member clinically integrated network and accountable care organization, leverages synchronous virtual curbside consultations to improve access to specialist expertise for rural primary care teams. It will explain the model (real-time, secure PCP-to-specialist advice), why it is especially valuable for ultra-rural sites and new-to-practice NPs/PAs, and how it supports success in value-based payment models and accomplishes the quadruple aim. It will also share outcomes and lessons learned—such as high provider satisfaction, avoided referrals and ED visits, and challenges in measuring savings across payers/EMRs—along with priorities for sustainability and future enhancements (including deeper longitudinal collaboration, AI decision support, payer collaborations, and grant subsidization).

Learning objectives:

• Understand the unique challenges of rural healthcare delivery and how virtual curbside consultations address critical gaps in specialist access
• Describe the implementation and operational model of synchronous virtual curbside consultation programs
• Evaluate the evidence-based benefits and outcomes of virtual curbside consultation programs across multiple stakeholder perspectives
• Apply strategies for sustaining and scaling virtual curbside consultation programs within value-based care models

Presented by: Mary Butler-Fleming, COO; Community Care Partnerships of Maine