EO Expands Telehealth Access Post-COVID

On August 3, 2020, President Trump signed Govt Order 13941 (the “Govt Order”) which expands entry to sure telehealth companies post-pandemic. The Govt Order focuses on telehealth entry for people residing in rural areas and implements the next mechanisms:

The Secretary of HHS is tasked with creating a brand new mannequin that may give rural suppliers flexibilities from present Medicare Guidelines, set up predictable monetary funds and shift the present mannequin to align extra carefully with value-based care.

The Secretary of Agriculture, in coordination with the Federal Communications Fee, should develop and implement a technique to enhance the bodily and communications healthcare infrastructure for these residing in rural areas.

HHS can even be required to submit a report back to the President on initiatives to get rid of regulatory burdens that restrict availability of clinicians in rural areas, in addition to extra typically to enhance rural well being.

Critically, the Govt Order additionally directs HHS to evaluation sure momentary telehealth enlargement measures carried out in the course of the COVID-19 Public Well being Emergency (the “PHE”) for all Medicare beneficiaries, and suggest a regulation to increase these measures past the PHE. Particularly, HHS is required to think about extension of: (i) the extra companies allowed to be furnished by way of telehealth; and (ii) flexibilities associated to companies, reporting, staffing, and supervision in rural areas.

Such extension can be welcome to suppliers who’ve expanded telehealth choices in the course of the PHE, and to beneficiaries who’ve relied on these choices. Concurrently, the Facilities for Medicare & Medicaid Providers (CMS) is proposing modifications to broaden telehealth alongside a number of the identical traces because the Govt Order, together with extending an expanded checklist of telehealth companies and sure different flexibilities, as an illustration as associated to sensible telephone use and supervision necessities. CMS’ proposed rule can be centered on rising accessibility to telehealth by protecting digital check-ins. Nevertheless, neither the Govt Order nor CMS’ rule would deal with strict statutory limitations on the places the place Medicare will cowl telehealth service, and which positioned a extreme burden on the usage of telehealth for Medicare beneficiaries previous to the PHE. Whereas these restrictions have been waived in the course of the PHE, it’s not clear whether or not or how the company will deal with them when the PHE expires. Up to now, CMS has taken the place that Congressional motion is critical.

Congressional motion isn’t out of the query and the Govt Order is the newest in a lot of proposals, together with proposed laws, geared toward increasing telehealth. Please check with our earlier discussions on the Equal Entry to Care Act and the Well being Act. We now have additionally supplied our insights on reopening challenges in gentle of extra waves of Covid-19, see https://www.sheppardhealthlaw.com/2020/07/articles/coronavirus/reopening-challenges-faqs/

This text isn’t an unequivocal assertion of the regulation, however as an alternative represents our greatest interpretation of the place issues at the moment stand. This text doesn’t deal with the potential impacts of the quite a few different native, state and federal orders which were issued in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, however which aren’t referenced on this article.