Health Law Advisor

One of the challenges to increasing Medicare coverage of telehealth services is amending the statutory language in the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. § 1395m) to remove geographic and other limitations. The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 requires the Congressional Budget Office (“CBO”) to provide cost estimates of proposed legislation. These CBO scoring reports provide estimates on the spending and revenues associated with legislation, generally over the window of 10 years beyond the effective date of the legislation. Therefore, budgetary ...

As requested by Congress as part of an appropriations bill signed into law late last year, this month, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a report highlighting its e-health and telemedicine efforts.  The report makes for interesting reading, and while there are no significant surprises in the report, it offers a clear snapshot of some of the agency’s thinking regarding virtual care.

The first thing I noted in the report is the agency’s view that “telehealth holds promise as a means of increasing access to care and improving health outcomes.”  This is ...