[TAO] MobiHealthNews Article: ACOs, digital health companies petition new HHS secretary to derestrict telehealth Shared by: Catherine Britain

[Catherine Britain]

TAO listserv,<br><br>

<strong>Catherine Britain</strong> has shared the following MobiHealthNews
article with you: <br><br>
<strong>ACOs, digital health companies petition new HHS secretary to
derestrict telehealth</strong><br>
<strong>By: </strong>Jonah Comstock<br>
<strong>Published: </strong>June 10, 2014 (1:57 pm)<br><br>

The full text of this article is available on MobiHealthNews at the
following URL: <a
href="http://mobihealthnews.com/33977/acos-digital-health-companies-petition-new-hhs-secretary-to-derestrict-telehealth/">http://mobihealthnews.com/33977/acos-digital-health-companies-petition-new-hhs-secretary-to-derestrict-telehealth/</a><br><br>

Catherine Britain also shared the following remarks, relevant to this
article: There are two avenues being used in hopes of removing the
rural/urban language from the CMS rules as well as the prohibitions against
store and forward and certain therapies.<br><br>

Below is an excerpt of the full MobiHealthNews article:<br><br>

Teladoc was one of the many signatories on one of the letters recently sent
to incoming HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell.

After efforts to remove restrictions from CMS coverage of telehealth through
legislative channels have stalled, telehealth stakeholders have sent a
barrage of open letters to incoming US Secretary of Health and Human
Services Sylvia Burwell, urging her to use her newfound executive powers to
waive the offending restrictions.

One letter was sent by the Alliance for Connected Care, a lobbyist group
which includes such telehealth vendors as WellPoint, Teladoc, CVS,
Walgreens, Verizon, HealthSpot and Welch Allyn as well as a number of
disease and healthcare advocacy organizations. Another came from the
American Telemedicine Association, HIMSS, Qualcomm, Intel, the
Telecommunications Industry Association and a number of other businesses and
interest groups. The final letter was signed by the CEOs and Presidents of
29 health systems and ACOs.

"The ACOs are fairly new groups to this, in that they’ve been really working
to develop the organizations and a lot of them didn’t even know themselves
that they couldn’t use telemedicine until we pointed it out to them,"
Jonathan Linkous, President of the American Telemedicine Association told
MobiHealthNews. "The fact that the ACOs are lining up behind us on this is a
very positive thing."

The letters pertain to section 1834(m) of the Social Security Act, a 2001
piece of legislation that was passed at a time when telemedicine was much
more of an unknown quantity, and fee-for-service was the main payment model
in consideration. The Act restricted CMS reimbursement for telemedicine to
rural areas, where it was believed telemedicine had the most cost-saving
potential, as well as disallowing coverage for store-and-forward
technologies and services like physical therapy and occupational therapy.

Because ACOs use bundled payments, Medicare doesn't pay for their services
per item: it gives them a lump some to provide the best care possible. So if
something is restricted from coverage, ACOs often have to restrict the
service entirely.

"Those of us working with providers who do not receive reimbursement for
connected care services are faced with the difficult decision of assuming
financial risk by providing the care for free," says the ACO letter. "For
many physician-led and smaller ACOs without access to a lot of capital, it
is not even an option."

Linkous says the ATA is also pursuing legislative means to get the
restrictions removed, via HR3306, a bill currently in the House, proposed by
Congressman Gregg Harper (R-Mississippi). He says there is no real
opposition to the change -- they just need to "make enough of a ruckus" to
move the bureaucracy.

"Nobody’s opposed to this, nobody’s saying we can’t do it that I’m aware of,
nobody whether inside the bureaucracy or outside," he said. "It’s the
question of raising this to the attention where they actually take action on
it. It’s a simple waiver. Nobody is saying the ACOs are going to spend more
money. We’re just saying allow them to use the money they’re given, allow
the provider and the patient to make the decision as to the best way to
provide care. ... It used to be we were asking for a lot more money from the
government, now we’re just asking the government to get out of the way, and
let patients and providers do what they want to do."

Notably, some of the organizations involved had sent a similar letter to
former secretary Kathleen Sebelius before she stepped down. Nonetheless,
Linkous thinks it's a matter of when, not if, the restrictions are lifted.

"It’s amazing when you think 10, 15 years ago how little [telehealth
technology] was around," he said. "And today, telecommunications is
ubiquitous. That’s why we update regulations, that’s why we change laws, and
it’s time to change this one. And in this case, if we’re lucky and fortunate
the secretary will make this change. If the secretary won’t do it, we have
enough voices in Congress that they’ll do it at some point, it’s just a
question of how quickly we can get Congress to act."

<br><br> 

<a
href="http://mobihealthnews.com/33977/acos-digital-health-companies-petition-new-hhs-secretary-to-derestrict-telehealth/"><strong>Click
here to read the full article on MobiHealthNews >></strong></a>
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