On November 2, 2021, CMS issued the final Calendar Year 2022 (CY2022) Physician Fee Schedule (PFS), which makes payment and policy changes under Medicare Part B. View a summary produced by the Alliance for Connected Care here. Additional links are provided below: Fact Sheet Final Rule MDPP Fact Sheet CMS Summary Overview of Major Policies [...]
R Street Institute: An Analysis of State and Federal Telehealth Reforms During and Beyond Covid-19 R Street Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, public policy research organization issued a report of the changing trends in telehealth policies during the pandemic and recommends solidifying flexibilities related to audio-only telemedicine services, store-and-forward data services and medical licensure. This report echoes [...]
JAMA: Analysis of Clinician and Patient Factors and Completion of Telemedicine Appointments Using Video – A new research article published by JAMA Network Open, examines the results of a quality improvement study of more than 130,000 scheduled video visits at an academic health system between March 1 and Dec. 31, 2020. Patient characteristics including older age [...]
Center for Connected Health Policy: State Telehealth Laws and Reimbursement Policies – At a Glance (Fall 2021) The Center for Connected Health Policy (CCHP) released its fall 2021 State Telehealth Laws and Reimbursement Policies At a Glance document, which highlighted several trends in telehealth at the state level over the last several months. All 50 [...]
National Institutes of Health: Comparing efficacy of telehealth to in-person mental health care in intensive-treatment-seeking adults Findings from a recent study of patients receiving intensive psychological treatment pre-COVID-19, suggest telehealth as a viable care alternative with no significant differences between in-person and telehealth groups in depressive symptom reduction, and significant increases in self-reported quality of [...]
On November 1, the Alliance for Connected Care and nearly 50 stakeholder groups sent a letter to Congress urging lawmakers to make permanent the current regulatory flexibility that allows telehealth and remote care services to be treated as an excepted benefit for certain employees. Including standalone telehealth as an excepted benefit will help ensure hardworking [...]
American College of Rheumatology: Race, Age, Sex and Language Affected Telemedicine Use by Rheumatology Clinic Patients During COVID-19 Pandemic New research presented at ACR Convergence, the American College of Rheumatology’s annual meeting, shows a significant lack of fairness among telemedicine and electronic patient portals used by rheumatology clinic patients based on their race, age, sex and [...]
Letter to Governors Stresses Urgency of Expiring Licensure Waivers and its Impact on Patient Access to Care Washington, DC – November 1, 2021 – Today, more than 230 organizations sent a letter to all 50 state governors urging them to maintain and expand licensure flexibilities enacted at the start of the pandemic for the duration [...]