Health Law Informer

Will Congress Come Together for Telemedicine?

  • Marc Goldsand and Marc Auerbach

    • Consistent with what we have been seeing in our own practice, and consumers’ growing demand for better access to telemedicine services, a bi-partisan movement is growing in both houses of Congress to expand telehealth services, improve health outcomes, and reduce healthcare costs. On Wednesday February 5, 2016, U.S. Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), John Thune (R-S.D.), and Mark Warner (D-Va.) introduced the Creating Opportunities Now for Necessary and Effective Care Technologies (CONNECT) for Health Act (s. 2484), which seeks to overhaul Medicare’s treatment of the practice of telemedicine and its related technologies. Companion legislation was introduced in the House of Representatives by U.S. Reps. Diane Black (R-TN), Peter Welch (D-VT), and Gregg Harper (R-MS). According to the Senate bill’s sponsors, the CONNECT for Health Act would:

    1. Create a bridge program to help providers transition to the goals of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) and the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) through using telehealth and RPM without most of the 1834(m) restrictions contained in the aforementioned Senate bill;
    2. Allow telehealth and Remote Patient Monitoring to be used by qualifying participants in alternative payment models, without most of the aforementioned 1834(m) restrictions;
    3. Permit the use of remote patient monitoring for certain patients with chronic conditions;
    4. Allow, as originating sites, telestroke evaluation and management sites; Native American health service facilities; and dialysis facilities for home dialysis patients in certain cases;
    5. Permit further telehealth and RPM in community health centers and rural health clinics;
    6. Allow telehealth and RPM to be basic benefits in Medicare Advantage, without most of the aforementioned 1834(m) restrictions; and
    7. Clarify that the provision of telehealth or RPM technologies made under Medicare by a health care provider for the purpose of furnishing these services shall not be considered “remuneration.”

    So far, the following organizations have publically endorsed the bill:

    The full text of the bill can be found here.

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