The Academy’s push to give family physicians broad latitude to use telehealth in the fight against COVID-19 delivered a substantial win March 30, when CMS announced plans to temporarily relax a number of key regulations and backdate implementation to March 1. The move, which includes other measures to relieve administrative burden and reinforce clinician staffing, […]
The World Health Organization’s qualification of coronavirus as a pandemic is already changing the way that cultures and industries across the globe operate. The healthcare industry is at the forefront of this crisis and has been forced to reevaluate its traditional resistance to the telehealth movement. With the reproductive number, or the number of secondary […]
On March 27, 2020, Congress passed, and President Trump signed, the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES Act)stimulus package aimed at addressing the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Pursuant to new authority granted under the CARES Act, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on March 30 released additional waivers further relaxing Medicare […]
The coronavirus is getting us comfortable with the virtual doctor’s appointment, and that’s going to ultimately change the entire conversation about the cost of healthcare. The U.S. healthcare system is expensive and difficult to “fix” for a lot of well-documented reasons, from the oddity of health insurance as a third-party intermediary to a business model that […]
Only weeks ago, American doctors’ waiting rooms were bustling with patients of all ages. This was no surprise as it is estimated that in an average year the U.S. healthcare system provided an estimated 278 office-based physician visits per 100 persons, for a total of approximately 883 million visits per year.Chronic conditions were the major […]
On March 30, 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced an additional temporary expansion of telehealth services to Medicare beneficiaries. CMS’s announcement of this new reimbursement flexibility builds on its prior expansion of telehealth services to address the COVID-19 pandemic. “Every day, heroic nurses, doctors, and other healthcare workers are dedicating long hours to […]
“The game changer for telehealth post pandemic is a whole new population will now have the experience of using the technology for the first time,” says Gurpreet Singh, partner and health services leader at PwC. Seemingly overnight, the United States has gone from hesitant about telehealth to embracing it, with COVID-19 forcing people out of […]
On March 30, 2020, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released a series of temporary waivers and an Interim Final Rule with Comment in response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. These actions stem from the January 27, 2020, public health emergency (PHE) declaration by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and a series of three bills […]
In the United States, people with, and especially without, insurance are used to heading to the emergency room if they need care quickly. Even before the coronavirus crisis, nearly half of all U.S. medical care came from emergency rooms. A natural reaction to feeling feverish in the era of COVID-19, therefore, is to rush to the […]
On March 27th, Congress passed and the President signed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (the CARES Act). On both the federal and state levels we have seen efforts to support social distancing in the health care sector by increasing the use of telehealth. On the federal side, we have seen the continued relaxation of […]
The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) took “unprecedented” action to reduce red tape for home health care agencies and other Medicare providers on Monday. Although the changes are, in theory, temporary, many home health stakeholders welcomed the newfound flexibility aimed at the COVID-19 pandemic. Some, however, were left scratching their heads, confused […]
On Friday, President Donald Trump’s signature finalized a record-breaking $2 trillion stimulus package, officially titled the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act. The act’s aim: to provide much needed financial relief to both individuals and businesses during the COVID-19 crisis. While the CARES Act does a number of things, it specifically sets aside […]
On March 27, 2020, President Trump signed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (the CARES Act) into law. The CARES Act contains several provisions affecting healthcare benefits and the expansion of telehealth services. Notably, the new law provides temporary relief for telehealth and High Deductible Health Plans (HDHP), allowing coverage for telehealth services without […]
CMS on March 30 issued various regulatory changes to further support hospitals’, physicians’ and other healthcare organizations’ capabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic, including expanding Medicare coverage of telehealth visits. On March 17, the Trump administration announced CMS will temporarily pay clinicians to provide telehealth services for beneficiaries during the pandemic. CMS is now expanding Medicare coverage of 85 additional services provided […]
In its latest moves to expand telehealth adoption during the Coronavirus pandemic, CMS has added 85 telehealth services to the list of services covered by Medicare and emphasized that payment will be at the same rate as in-service care. By Eric Wicklund April 01, 2020 – CMS is adding more than 80 new telehealth services to the list […]