Resources & Reports

The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) released testimony May 19th regarding their ongoing assessment of COVID-19 flexibilities within the Medicare and Medicaid programs, as required under federal pandemic response oversight provisions included the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. Provided before the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, the GAO focused its summarized findings around the effects of program flexibilities and preliminary observations related to telehealth waivers of certain federal requirements, as well as considerations regarding ongoing use.

Earlier this month Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland regarding the long-delayed regulations from the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) for a telehealth registry to prescribe controlled substances.  In the letter, Senator Warner expressed great concern for the delay and that “the DEA’s failure to address this issue means that a vast majority of health care providers that use telehealth to prescribe controlled substances to and otherwise treat their patients have been deterred in getting them the quality care they need.”

The Department of Defense (DOD) in partnership with the Council of State Governments (CSG) are helping professions to develop new interstate compacts for interstate licensure and licensure portability.

CCHP’s May Newsletter is Here! The “Creating Opportunities Now for Necessary and Effective Care Technologies (CONNECT) for Health Act of 2021” was recently introduced by Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI).  Having authored previous iterations of this bill, Senator Schatz notes that this Act will promote higher quality of care, increased access to care and reduce spending in Medicare through the expansion of telehealth services. The CONNECT Act was clearly drafted to take into consideration some of the temporary telehealth policy changes installed in response to COVID-19 and some of the issues that have arisen in the past year. For more information, take a look at CCHP’s CONNECT Act fact sheet or read the bill’s summary.

MobiHealth News is shining the light on a much-overlooked benefit of telemedicine: how it can help curb greenhouse gas emissions and thus help in the fight against climate change.  The recent article highlights that the United States healthcare industry is a big contributor to carbon emissions, and although telemedicine doesn’t solve the problem, its increased use does lead the industry in the right direction.  This has been proven in two research studies conducted on this very subject.