Permanent telehealth expansion is the future of healthcare delivery, and you can help increase access to care, address fraud concerns, and expand telehealth with 3 simple actions outlined at the end of this blog post.

For now, we want to tell you where we are at and what we have already done to make it easy for you to advocate for telehealth expansion that benefits everyone.

Why Existing Telehealth Policy Was Outdated Even Before COVID-19

For many decades at a federal policy level, telehealth was a means of delivering care to underserved largely rural populations. Even as other industries transitioned from providing “brick and mortar” based services to virtual services over the past couple decades, until the enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, or ACA), there was no significant federal law or policy to drive industry wide innovation of healthcare delivery.

While the ACA has made significant contributions to improving our healthcare system, unfortunately, it did not modernize our antiquated laws, rules, and regulations governing telehealth.  

How the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency Advanced Telehealth

As telehealth slowly gained traction since ACA enactment, COVID-19 changed everything.

With the onset of a global pandemic, providers, hospitals, and health systems had to rethink how to effectively deliver care. In response, the Congress and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) waived rules and regulations that had been in place for decades and that held back use and the provision of telehealth, leading to an incredible natural experiment where patients received better access to necessary care at lower costs.

For many underserved populations in rural, suburban, and urban communities where the closest provider could be hours away due to distance, lack of transportation, or provider shortage, connecting to a caregiver through telehealth provided a much more convenient and patient-centered means of delivering care. 

Why We Will Lose the Current Medicare Telehealth Expansion When the Public Health Emergency Ends—Unless We Act Now 

In short, telehealth has saved lives and lowered healthcare expenditures during the pandemic.

Unfortunately, the flexibilities that have allowed telehealth services to flourish are tied to the HHS Declaration of Public Health Emergency. Once the Secretary has withdrawn this Declaration or decides to let it expire, millions of Americans risk losing access to the care they have come to depend on over the past year and a half.

Like Nixon Gwilt Law, Health Innovation Alliance knows that now is the time to act to ensure we do not lose the benefits of telehealth, and that’s why we’re advocating for this.

How We’re Working Toward Permanent Medicare Telehealth Expansion

One month ago, Joel White, the Executive Director of Health Innovation Alliance, testified before the United States House Ways and Means Committee on the need to expand access to digital health strategies like telehealth. The hearing focused on charting the path forward for telehealth. You can read Mr. White’s written testimony here, which has an extensive discussion for next steps. Summarized, his recommendations include:

1. Congress must modernize Medicare by: (1) making COVID-19 telehealth flexibilities permanent; (2) require that payments to Medicare Advantage plans are risk adjusted to reflect audio only visits; and (3) include at home COVID-19 testing to avoid unnecessary exposure and infection;

2.  Address concerns about fraud and overutilization not by restricting patient access to care, but by confronting bad actors through: (1) $1 billion in new anti-fraud funding to contract out artificial intelligence/machine learning technologies that spot and stop inappropriate payments; (2) audit the top 5% of claims and identify and investigate outliers; and (3) allow telehealth as a matter of course in value based (at-risk) payment models; and

3.  Expand access to telehealth in employer markets by: (1) addressing interstate licensure barriers; and (2) expand resources to pay for telehealth via account-based plans and excepted benefits policies.

These changes will help expand access, control costs and address lawmaker concerns that taking the restrictions off of telehealth will lead to a cost explosion of unnecessary or fraudulent care. 

3 Easy Steps You Can Take Now to Help Make Permanent Telehealth Expansion a Reality

Take five minutes now to do these three things and you’ll have done your part!

1. Join the Health Innovation Alliance. More diverse voices will help advance legislation to modernize health care delivery. You can find out more here. 

2. Endorse the Telehealth Modernization Act (S. 368 and H.R. 1332), which would permanently expand COVID telehealth flexibilities. An example of an endorsement letter is here. 

3. Tell your Member of Congress to cosponsor the Telehealth Modernization Act. Find your Member of Congress here.

As the country works towards creating a more robust, and truly patient-centered and inclusive healthcare system that reflects modern healthcare standards, environmental, socioeconomic, and cultural realities, telehealth must be a part of the solution.

Not acting and reverting back to the old rules would demonstrate that the Congress learned little from the benefits of telehealth during the pandemic and is willing to forgo the continued and necessary modernization of our healthcare delivery system. At the end of the day, it will be patients who lose out.