We were thrilled to see that on Monday, Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy sig
ned
SB 467: An Act Concerning the Facilitation of Telehealth
! This bill establishes minimum standards of practice for telehealth (effective October 1, 2015) and mandates private health insurance coverage of telehealth (effective January 1, 2016). The bill included store and forward and remote patient monitoring in the definition of telehealth and did not place any restrictions on patient or provider sites, helping to support a positive environment for new telehealth services. Among the standards of practice included in the bill is a requirement that the telehealth provider shall ask the patient for consent to disclose records of the interaction with the patient's primary care provider.
Connecticut now becomes the 28th state to pass a parity law for private insurance and joins Maine,
New Hampshire,
New York (effective January 1, 2016), and Vermont. We eagerly wait to see if Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Jersey may still make some progress this year.
Recently, we have received more questions about reimbursement for telehealth services through ACOs. As you may know, ACOs are restricted to the same Medicare requirements as other payment models unless there is a specific exemption. CMS announced in March that the new Next Generation ACO would not be restricted to the originating site/rural requirements that can pose a barrier for many services. Earlier this month, CMS also released their final rule for the Medicare Shared Savings Program. Unfortunately, the new rule did not make immediate changes for telehealth as many recommended. They did announce plans for a waiver of certain billing and payment requirements to begin as early as January, 2017 to be "determined based on CMS' experience implementing such a waiver in the Next Generation ACO model." We hope to see further expansion of reimbursement by Medicare and will continue to track updates!
We have also been busy preparing for the NETRC Regional Conference, "
Integrating Telehealth in an Evolving Landscape". We hope to see you in Burlington, VT on September 23 for pre-conference workshops and on September 24 for the full-day conference. As we announced last month,
Charles Doarn is this year's Keynote Speaker and we can't wait to share the rest of the agenda with you!
Sincerely,
The NETRC Team
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American Telemedicine Association
Presenters: Jonathan Linkous, Chief Executive Officer and Gary Capistrant, Chief Policy Officer
Tuesday, June 30, 2015, 2:00 - 3:00 PM EST
National Telehealth Webinar Series
Presented by the Center for Connected Health Policy
Presenter: Dr. Richard Garfein, PhD, MPH, University of California, San Diego
Thursday, July 16, 2015, 2:00 - 3:00 PM EST
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RECENT TELEHEALTH NEWS
Content compiled by Michael Edwards, NETRC Consultant
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Telehealth Policy News
Iowa high court strikes down telemedicine abortion ban
Fierce Health IT, June 22, 2015
The Iowa Supreme Court recently struck down a ban on the use of telemedicine for abortions, overturning an appeals court ruling that upheld the ban. It ruled the ban unconstitutional, saying it places "an undue burden on a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy as defined by the United States Supreme Court.
Vermont Sets Policy on Telemedicine
Federal Telemedicine News, June 7, 2015
The Vermont Board of Medical Practice in May, approved and released their first document titled "Policy on the Appropriate Use of Telemedicine Technologies in the Practice of Medicine". The challenge to the Board was to find the right balance so that new technologies will be able to offer convenience and better access to care.
Several states enact telehealth parity laws in 2015
National Law Review, June 3, 2015
Thus far in 2015, several states (Indiana, Minnesota, and Nevada) have enacted parity laws requiring that certain telehealth services be reimbursed to the same extent as in-person services. This overview discusses how in a number of the states with parity laws they extend only to telehealth services that meet certain conditions. The article was written before the Connecticut bill was signed.
Health care update & telehealth policy alert
ML Strategies, June 2, 2015
This story systematically reviews progress of the House, Senate, and various federal agencies in advancing telehealth policies.
CMS Medicare reimburses nearly $14 million for telemedicine in 2014
Center for Telehealth and eHealth Law Telehealth Buzz, May 8, 2015
According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Medicare telemedicine reimbursement totaled $13.9 million in 2014. This represents progressive growth in utilization but still relatively miniscule relative to policy concerns that the program might increase overall healthcare costs.
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News on the Practice of Telemedicine
mHealth News, June 15, 2015
The Adventist Health System in Florida has adopted a platform for connecting providers with chronic care patients outside normal office hours with plans to take advantage of the recent Medicare policies for reimbursing under its Chronic Care Management billing codes.
Telemedicine taking off--Walgreens, local programs expand
Boston Herald, June 14, 2015
Initiatives are profiled in Massachusetts that deliver virtual doctor visits to patients in their homes by computer or smartphone, including programs by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, UMass Memorial Health Care, and Walgreens in collaboration with .
UMass Memorial to spend millions more on virtual doctors
Boston Business Journal, June 10, 2015
UMass Memorial Health Care, long a leader in tele-ICU and telestroke programs, is doubling its annual investment in virtual medicine with a program to increase access to virtual visits to outpatient visits, various inpatient consultations, and genetic counseling. They expect to invest $15 annually into the programs starting with a virtual medicine platform for its own employees in the next four months,
UC Davis study finds significant cost savings in pediatric telemedicine consults compared to phone consults
UCSD Press Release, May 21, 2015
Researchers at UC Davis recently published a study that documents significant savings for rural hospital emergency departments from implementing pediatric telemedicine consultations compared to telephone consults, an average $4,662 per use.
Telepsychiatry program honored
Federal Telemedicine News, May.31,2015
Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government recently honored South Carolina Department of Mental Health's Emergency Department Telepsychiatry Consultation with its award for "Bright Ideas." Since its inception in 2009, the program has provided more than 20,000 psychiatric consultations in emergency departments across the state in twenty hospitals in the state.
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Telemedicine Technology News
Massive layoffs as Bosch opts out of U.S. telehealth market
Home Care Technology Report, June 15, 2015
Robert Bosch Healthcare Systems, Inc. laid off nearly all of its staff Monday morning, June 15, in preparation to exit the home telehealth market.
Research review finds mHealth tools increase physician workload, disrupt workflow
Fierce Mobile Healthcare, June 15, 2015
In a recently published review on mHealth, researchers from Quebec have reported that providers surveyed tended to agree that mHealth tools and systems brought quicker contact and communication and improved their access to colleagues, yet the increased workload and the disturbed workflow represented barriers to further adoption.
American Well sues Teladoc
mHealth News, June 08, 2015
American Well has filed suit against Teladoc in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, accusing the Dallas-based company of "infringement of its intellectual property rights" in deploying an online telehealth platform that allegedly mirrors what Boston-based American Well deploys.
AMD Global Telemedicine is on path to provide health-care to all
Lowell Sun, May 24, 2015
AMD Global Telemedicine Inc., headquartered in Chelsford, MA, is profiled with examples of use of its equipment and software to provide linkage of Greenland primary care clinics to providers in Denmark and Baystate Medical Center of Springfield, MA, with more rural affiliate hospitals and clinics for specialty telemedicine in critical care, infectious disease management, and neurology.
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Health Information Technology News
HIEs evolving as demand increases
Fierce EMR, June 19, 2015
Both health information exchanges (HIEs) and providers' needs regarding them have evolved since HIEs were first launched, according to a recent report from NRC at the University of Chicago for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT. New Hampshire and Vermont, along with four other states, were included in a review that found progress toward provision of patient information at the point of care to improve healthcare delivery.
Georgia using telehealth in schools
Federal Telemedicine News, June10, 2015
The telehealth programs serving 60 rural school school systems in network managed by the Georgia Partnership for TeleHealth have recently been linked up to Georgia Health Information Network, thus allowing exchange of medical records with providers and hospitals around the state as well as the state immunization registry.
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Recent Telehealth Resources
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American Telemedicine Association. Working with medical boards: Ensuring comparable standards for the practice of medicine via telemedicine. ATA State Telemedicine Toolkit, May 2015 Link
Broderick A, Haque F. Mobile health and patient engagement in the safety net: a survey of community health centers and clinics. The Commonwealth Fund, May 2015 Link Balkhi AM, Reid AM, Westen SC, et al. Telehealth interventions to reduce management complications in type 1 diabetes: A review. World J. Diabetes 6(3):371-379, 2015 Link Bladin CF, Cadilhac DA. Effect of telestroke on emergent stroke care and stroke outcomes. Stroke 45(6):1876-1880, 2014 Link Eadie L, Regan L, Mort A, et al. Telestroke assessment on the move: prehospital streamlining of patient pathways. Stroke 46(2):e38-40, 2015 Link Erickson CE, Fauchald S, Ideker M. Integrating telehealth into the graduate nursing curriculum. J. Nurse Pract. 11(1): e1-e5, 2015 htm Gagnon MP, Ngangue P, Payne-Gagnon J, Desmartis M. m-Health adoption by healthcare professionals: a systematic review. J. Amer. Med. Inform. Assoc. Apr 15 [e-pub before print], 2015 Link Jeon E, Park HA. Factors affecting acceptance of smartphone application for management of obesity. Healthcare Inform. Res. 21(2):74-82, 2015 Link Modahl M, Meinke S. Telehealth Index: 2015 Physician Survey. American Well, June 2015 Link Molfenter T, Boyle M, Holloway D, Zwick J. Trends in telemedicine use in addiction treatment. Addiction Sci. Clin. Practice 10:14, 2015 Link Piette JD, Striplin D, Marinec N, et al. A mobile health intervention supporting heart failure patients and their informal caregivers: a randomized comparative effectiveness trial. J. Med. Internet Res. 17(6):e142, 2015 Link Varrell JR, Boyce G, Baker S, Robinson B, Boyce OC. Telepsychiatry 101: What organizations implementing telebehavioral health need to know-White Paper. In Sight Telepsychiatry, Inc, 2015 Link Varrell JR, Boyce G, Baker S, Robinson B, Boyce OC. Telepsychiatry for hospital systems-White Paper. In Sight Telepsychiatry, Inc, 2015 Link Vermont Board of Medical Practice. Policy on the Appropriate Use of Telemedicine Technologies in the Practice of Medicine. Vermont State Depatment of Healt, 2015 Link Welch G, Balder A, Zagarins S. Telehealth program for type 2 diabetes: usability, satisfaction, and clinical usefulness in an urban community health center. Telemed. eHealth. 21(5):395-403, 2015 Link
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