Particularly, due to COVID-19, an influx of medical professionals has begun to add tele-health services to their repertoire. These services allow patients, during a public health crisis, to have unfettered access to healthcare professionals who may not have otherwise been able to meet with a doctor.Â
The US Health Resources Services Administration defines tele-health as the use of electronic information and telecommunications technologies to support long-distance clinical healthcare, patient and professional health-related education, public health and health administration. Telehealth is often used in conjunction with the term telemedicine; however, tele-health refers to a broader scope of remote healthcare services than telemedicine. As described in Chapter 1, while telemedicine refers specifically to remote clinical services, tele-health can refer to remote non-clinical services, such as provider training, administrative meetings and continuing medical education, in addition to clinical services.
Many private insurance providers allow for reimbursement for tele-health services; however, federal and state reimbursement plans have been slow to adopt reimbursement schemes. Regardless, 35 states in 2019 passed 113 tele-health-related legislative bills and finalized 54 tele-health-related regulations. The large leap in the numbers of bills passed was partially due to the increased passage of cross-state licensing legislation enacting interstate licensing compacts. Specifically, states enacted one of four interstate licensure compacts for out-of-state licensed providers to practice in other compact member-states under certain circumstances. States also focused on broadening the scope of tele-health services under their respective Medicaid statutes, adding additional professionals while reducing barriers to the use of tele-health. Several bills also made significant changes to states tele-health private payer law.
Another trend has been expanding the definition of tele-health and requiring reimbursement for additional tele-health modalities, beyond live video (such as store-and-forward and remote patient monitoring. 2019 was the first year Medicare began reimbursing a broader set of remote communication technology services (defined separately from tele-health), encompassing some of the non-face-to-face services that typically occur through tele-health modalities.
Additionally, pending federal legislation to expand Medicare tele-health reimbursement generally, such as the Creating Opportunities Now for Necessary and Effective Care Technologies (CONNECT) for Health Act of 2019 is, as of the date of this writing, making its way through Congress.
Matthew DeNoncour, Esq. is the principal attorney and owner of Magis Law Firm, a boutique law firm based in Boston, with offices in Providence, Miami, and Fort Myers, where he provides legal services to the healthcare, life science, and technology industries. You can reach Matt at magislawfirm.com, by phone at 866-277-8680 or by email at mdenoncour@magislawfirm.com. This post is not meant to be legal advice: learn more here.
