This chart contains a quick reference guide outlining the major impacts on federal telehealth policy on Medicare. For the most part, the policies focus on the temporary changes that were made to Medicare telehealth policy in response to COVID-19.
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.
The California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS), which oversees the state Medicaid program (Medi-Cal), recently released their permanent telehealth policy proposals. While overarching policies related to maintaining audio-only coverage and payment parity for all telehealth modalities appear to be continuing, a few additional policies proposed may create new barriers to the utilization of telehealth within the Medi-Cal program.
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.
