Health IT Now's Joel White: Telemedicine will be in legislation 'in some form'
Expansion of telemedicine services reimbursed by Medicare may be left out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's 21st Century Cures bill, according to a Politico article citing industry sources.
Officials couldn't agree on how to lower the barriers to Medicare payments, according to the article.
However, Noelle Clemente, press secretary for the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce, said in an email to FierceHealthIT that the committee has not pushed aside telemedicine.
"Telemedicine is a priority for the committee, particularly thanks to the leadership of Reps. [Gregg] Harper [(R-Miss.)] and [Doris] Matsui [(D-Calif.)], and will continue to be an important part of the 21st Century Cures initiative," she wrote.
In January, 21st Century Cures released a discussion document on its healthcare innovation proposals that included provisions regarding Medicare's telehealth policy. Those provisions, however, didn't go far enough, the American Hospital Association said shortly after the document's release.
Krista Drobac, who heads the Alliance for Connected Care, stressed the importance of telehealth remaining in the bill.
"Given telehealth's ongoing contributions to the goals we are trying to achieve in healthcare, namely innovation, care coordination and appropriate care in lower-cost settings, we believe that the 21st Century Cures legislation is a fitting place for it. It should stay as part of the bill," she wrote in an email to FierceHealthIT.
Joel White, executive director of Health IT Now, said in an interview with FierceHealthIT that currently any speculation on what will and will not be in the bill is premature and that the committee continues to work on the provisions of the bill.
He added that telemedicine "in some form" will be part of the bill. However, that doesn't mean the provisions for telemedicine reimbursement or coverage expenses will be in the legislation.
"The cold hard reality" is that the Congressional Budget Office's scoring system could be a barrier for telemedcine, he said. "If it gets a bad score from CBO, it's probably not going to make it into the legislation," White said.
The next draft version of the 21st Century Cure's bill is expected by the end of this month, according to Politico.
The committee plans to send a bill to President Barack Obama's desk by the end of the year.
To learn more:
- read the Politico post
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Katie Dvorak
Quelle/Source: FierceHealthIT, 17.04.2015
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