Community clinics say the easing of restrictions on telehealth during the pandemic has made it possible for health workers to connect with hard-to-reach patients via a phone call -- people who are poor, elderly or live in remote areas, and don't have access to a computer or cell phone with video capability. Community clinics say the easing of restrictions on telehealth during the pandemic has made it possible for health workers to connect with hard-to-reach patients via a phone call -- people who are poor, elderly or live in remote areas, and don't have access to a computer or cell phone with video capability. Caswell County, where William Crumpton works, runs along the northern edge of North Carolina and is a rural landscape of mostly former tobacco farms and the occasional fast-food restaurant. "There are wide areas where cell phone signals are just nonexistent," Crumpton says. "Things like satellite radio are even a challenge."