Medicare and telehealth

CMS to Congress: You’re the Impediment to Greater Use of Telehealth

The primary obstacle to Medicare making greater use of telehealth is current laws, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has told Congress in a new report. The report, mandated by the 21st Century Cures Act, outlines the extent of telehealth utilization today, describes its benefits, and suggests potential new and expanded uses for telehelath, but it also notes that Current restrictions on eligible telehealth originating sites appear to be the greatest barrier to preventing the expansion of Medicare telehealth services. The two most significant Medicare restrictions are: 1) requiring the originating site to be located in certain types of [...]

iqtsupport2018-11-20T06:00:23-05:00November 20, 2018|Medicare, Telehealth|

Physicians Push Back Against Medicare Telemedicine Proposal

A proposal to enable Medicare to make greater use of telemedicine as a means of serving patients is receiving surprising pushback from physicians. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has proposed paying doctors $14 for what would amount to a five-minute telephone “check-in” call with patients. Some physicians note that they already have such telephone conversations patients – and do not charge for those calls. Others fear the new service will increase their patients’ health care costs because they would incur a co-pay for such conversations. The chairman of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), himself a physician, has [...]

iqtsupport2018-10-11T13:00:46-04:00October 11, 2018|Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Medicare regulations|

MedPAC Meets

Last week the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission held two days of public meetings in Washington, D.C. During the sessions MedPAC, a non-partisan legislative branch agency that advises Congress on Medicare payment issues, addressed the following subjects: a Medicare Advantage status report a Medicare prescription drug program (Part D) status report hospital inpatient and outpatient payments physician payments ambulatory surgical center, dialysis center, and hospice payments post-acute care facility payments the hospital readmissions reduction program telehealth accountable care organizations Go here to see the issue briefs and presentations used during the meetings.

iqtsupport2018-01-18T06:00:18-05:00January 18, 2018|Accountable Care Organization, ACO, Medicare, Medicare post-acute care, MedPAC|

Telehealth on the Upswing

A number of recent developments suggest that serving patients with the assistance of telehealth services will become more commonplace in the near future. The Medicare MACRA and MIPS payment programs will include new billing codes for telehealth services, according to regulations published earlier this month. Also earlier this month, the House passed legislation, The Vets Act (H.R. 2123), that would authorize the Veterans Administration to make greater use of telehealth. And when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General recently announced plans to audit Medicaid programs for telehealth payments, it cited among its reasons [...]

iqtsupport2017-11-28T06:00:17-05:00November 28, 2017|Medicaid, Medicare, Medicare regulations|

MedPAC Meets

Members of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission met last week in Washington, D.C. Among the issues they discussed during their two days of meetings were Medicare coverage policy, Medicare coverage of telehealth services, pharmacy benefit managers and specialty pharmacies, and physician supervision requirements in critical access and small rural hospitals. Go here to see the issue briefs and presentations that were discussed during the meeting.

iqtsupport2017-09-13T06:00:10-04:00September 13, 2017|Medicare, MedPAC|