Resources & Reports

On March 15^th President Biden signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022.  This bill will extend federal telehealth flexibilities for 151 days post-public health emergency (PHE), including PHE location, provider, and audio-only expansions, and includes new report requirements.  A delay to the new in-person telemental health visit requirement in Medicare was also included for the same period of time.

As states continue to grapple with post-public health emergency (PHE) telehealth policies, California’s Medicaid agency, the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS), recently released their permanent proposal document. The majority of the telehealth expansions made during COVID appear to remain, including those around audio-only and federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) and rural health centers (RHC). The issue of payment parity remains unclear, however, as the budget trailer bill language implementing the proposal only explicitly speaks to parity for synchronous modalities and other exceptions.

CCHP’s March Newsletter is Here! This month’s topics include: Federal Regulations Expected on Substance Use Disorder/Buprenorphine and TRICARE; Latest Policy Developments in CCHP’s Telehealth Policy Finder and Policy Trends Map; Request For Information on Medicaid and CHIP; NIST Telehealth RPM Guidance; Support Mounts for Permanent Expansion of Telehealth Delivered Services in Medicare; Racial Disparity and Progress Made with Telehealth & the ACA.

While many pieces of federal legislation regarding telehealth have been introduced over the last two years, as shown in the recently introduced S. 3593: Telehealth Extension and Evaluation Act, there are some consistent components that continue to emerge as key elements across federal telehealth bills and policy conversations. Initially, many bills focused on making telehealth expansions permanent, but there has been a shift to now just proposing to extend such expansions, namely those that lessen Medicare geographic barriers and federal prescribing limitations, in addition to allowing more time to study expansion related effects.

As policymakers consider permanent telehealth policy changes, tracking the latest data has become increasingly important, in addition to breaking down data highlights and differences. Two new Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Data Highlight reports were recently released that look at telehealth trends amongst Medicare patients during the pandemic. In addition, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report submitted to Congress in early February assessed telehealth expansion impacts related to mental healthcare access for military service members.