State Telehealth Activity
IDS News: (4/1) – On March 31, Indiana Senate Bill 3 returned to the State Senate with amendments after passing its third reading in the House. The bill would touch on a variety of issues related to telehealth, including quality of care and Medicaid reimbursement. SB 3 would bring some of the previous emergency provisions and waivers from the pandemic into the permanent legal framework, and is likely to pass with bipartisan support.
New York State: (3/31) – New York Governor Andrew Cuomo accepted the final recommendations of the Reimagine New York Commission across three focus areas: connectivity, telehealth, and work. The Action Plan for a Reimagined New York highlights initiatives underway through public-private partnerships and through legislation included in the 2021 Executive Budget, including comprehensive telehealth reform to modernize outdated regulatory restrictions. The report included three objectives for improving telehealth use and access across the state: (1) Enact policy reform and encourage payors to develop more extensive coverage and reimbursement polices for telehealth across insurance types; (2) Empower patients with the connectivity, devices, private spaces, and familiarity to take full advantage of telehealth; (3) Equip health and behavioral health providers with the appropriate training, resources, and tools to deliver high-quality health care.
Bloomberg Opinion: (3/31) – Almost half of US states have laws allowing out-of-state providers to work during emergencies, and other states have used executive action to enable out-of-state providers to provide care during the COVID pandemic. This article highlights the varying state licensure requirements that can limit access and competition, calling for more states to take up the Nurse Licensure Compact that expedites the licensure process and has helped expand access to care during the pandemic.
Forbes: (3/31) – This article highlights state medical licensing boards as a major barrier in wider telehealth adoption, especially for providers looking to practice telehealth in other states where a patient is physically located. The author emphasizes the need for reforming or eliminating outdated state medical licensure restrictions to expand access to care, citing a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine that proposed the following reforms to address such regulatory barriers: the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact, license reciprocity, and federal medical licensing.
National Law Review: (3/30) – Several states are in the process of considering making telehealth flexibilities enacted during the pandemic permanent to expand telehealth access. Massachusetts recently passed SB 2984, which would address insurance coverage of telehealth services, and South Dakota passed SB 96, which would remove several restrictions on the provision of telehealth services in the state, for example. Several states have also issued regulations related to reimbursement for telehealth services, unrelated to COVID. As one example, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission amended its regulations related to federally qualified health center reimbursement to include coverage of telehealth services.
White and Williams LLP: (3/30) – This article reviews legislation introduced by several state legislators in New Jersey, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts to give permanency to the flexibilities afforded by telehealth during the pandemic. In New Jersey, Senate Bill 2559 was introduced to require certain New Jersey health benefit plans, including Medicaid, to provide coverage and payment for all forms of medical and behavioral health care services received via telehealth. In Delaware, House Bill 21 would adopt the Advanced Practice Registered Nurse Compact to allow certain nurses to provide health care coverage to patients in other states that are part of the compact.
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