Experts Weigh in on Post-COVID-19 Telehealth Rules and Policies

Nixon Law Group’s Managing Partner, Carrie Nixon, was quoted extensively in an article appearing in mHealth Intelligence regarding her views on post-COVID-19 telehealth rules and policies.

“Carrie Nixon, a healthcare innovation attorney and managing partner of the Nixon Law Group, sees two potential courses of action:

Incentivize provider adoption and implementation of telehealth and remote patient monitoring programs through a two-pronged approach. First, she says, Congress should pass legislation establishing a pool of funds available to providers across the entire spectrum of care, public and private, for exactly this purpose (similar to the HITECH Act). Second, CMS should use the carrot-and-stick approach under MACRA's Quality Payment Program, making implementation of a virtual care program a high-weighted ‘Improvement Activity’ metric for providers in the MIPS track, and a requirement for all participants in the Advanced Alternative Payment Model track.

Finalize proposed changes to the fraud and abuse landscape to allow telehealth, RPM and other digital health companies to enter into previously prohibited business arrangements with providers to facilitate the transition to a true value/outcomes based model of delivery and reimbursement. For example, Nixon says, the proposed Patient Engagement and Support safe harbor should be finalized, allowing RPM companies to provide incentives to patients for adhering to their RPM program by taking a certain number of readings per month. And the proposed Care Coordination Arrangements safe harbor should be finalized to allow ‘in-kind remuneration’ like sharing of staff between a provider and a vendor for RPM monitoring, allowing a vendor to provide devices to be used in conjunction with its telehealth platform for free to providers and others.”

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