Resources & Reports

Earlier this month, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published the Final Rule for the 2024 Physician Fee Schedule (PFS). The PFS contains policy changes for the Medicare program that will go into effect January 1, 2024 (unless otherwise stated). Many of the proposals in the Final Rule mirror what was proposed by CMS in July 2023, however, there were a few differences.  In this edition of CCHP’s In Focus we dive a bit deeper into a few of the of the final telehealth policies and release a new CY 2024 Final PFS factsheet that delves into each policy in more detail.

Last month the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) released two new resources for patients to increase understanding around protecting health information when receiving health care services via telehealth.

Just in time for spooky season, we see the revitalization of net neutrality.  It was announced late last month that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) would be revisiting net neutrality at their October commission meeting. As a refresher, net neutrality is the principle that all internet traffic should be treated equally and that no one entity should have their information/material favored or disadvantaged in any way, and every individual should have equal access to the internet.

Today the Center for Connected Health Policy (CCHP) is releasing its Summary of state telehealth policy changes for Fall 2023.  Additionally, we are also making available a summary chart showing where states stand on many key telehealth policies, as well as an infographic and FQHC factsheet highlighting our key findings.  The most current information in CCHP’s online policy finder tool may be exported for each state into a PDF document.  Note that the review period for this report was late May through early September 2023.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Inspector General(OIG) recently released a new report looking at telehealth use by home health agencies (HHAs) at the beginning of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE). It wasn’t until the start of the PHE that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) allowed HHAs the ability to really utilize telehealth to furnish services, and the new allowance came with additional requirements and restrictions.