Telehealth legislation gains steam on Capitol Hill
Telehealth reform is on the agenda for many lawmakers on Capitol Hill, report executives from the American Telemedicine Association (ATA).
“It’s really kicked up at the federal level,” said Gary Capistrant, ATA's senior director of public policy, during the association's monthly videocast on July 29.
The House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s latest initiative, called “21st Century Cures”, entails a “broad based exploration” of healthcare issues like genomics, privacy, EHRs and biotech. Telehealth also is a focal point, he said.
Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.), who is likely to be re-elected this fall to his last term in Congress, is expected to push forward telehealth reform items for 2015 and 2016, he said.
“They’ve taken the lead of congressional committees on telehealth, and are getting into details on it,” he said. Two other committees actively interested in telehealth are the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee.
Newly proposed bills include S. 2662, introduced by Sens. Thad Cochran (R) and Roger Wicker (R), both of Mississippi—a state that Capistrant said is a “leader” in pushing telehealth reform. The bill, which is intended as a companion bill to H.R. 3306 by Rep. Greg Harper, would promote and expand the application of telehealth under Medicare and other federal healthcare programs. Among its provisions are authorizing accountable care organizations to receive reimbursement for telehealth.
Other legislation, which is expected to be introduced formally soon, is the Medicare Parity Act, introduced by Reps. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) and Glenn Thompson (R-Penn.). Rolled out over four years, the bill would authorize reimbursement for telehealth services rendered in urban areas, expand eligible locations for reimbursement to include retail clinics and a patient’s home, and would lift restrictions on store-and-forward technology, for which clinical data is collected and reviewed at a later time.
Eventually telemedicine would achieve parity for Medicare, Capistrant said. “This is an important bill to have as part of the mix.”
Other bills, which push for licensure reciprocity, include TELE-MED Act of 2013 (H.R. 3077) and Veterans E-Health & Telemedicine Support Act of 2013 (H.R. 2001).
“We’ve got 120 members of Congress on one or both of those bills,” Capistrant said.
As in last year, another legislation vehicle that could help shepherd in telehealth-friendly laws is a SGR and doc fix bill, which would reform how Medicare pays physicians. The law must pass by March 31, 2015, to make further changes, he said.
The latest plan would cost $140 billion over ten years, thus “they’ll need provisions to offset the cost of it,” said Capistrant. “But we won’t see any action until after the elections.”
In other news, Jonathan Linkous, CEO of ATA, said an announcement about the association’s forthcoming online accreditation program is expected “in a couple of weeks.”
Also, the association will soon release two reports:
- A “report card” allowing stakeholders to compare reimbursement and medical practice rules for telehealth on a state-by-state basis
- Eight best practices for specific uses of telehealth for Medicaid.