Executive Director, Mei Kwong, provides a brief recap of state and federal telehealth policy in 2022 and what to look forward to in a post-PHE environment. View the PPT here.
As the year winds down, the Center for Connected Health Policy (CCHP) is providing its annual State Legislation Roundup. Enacted state telehealth bills in the 2022 legislative session followed trends forged in the previous 2021 legislative cycle, although at a slightly lesser volume. While 2020 was largely focused on scrambling to meet the needs of the population during the COVID pandemic through temporary telehealth waivers and flexibilities, both 2021 and 2022 challenged states to decide how to translate their temporary COVID policies into permanent telehealth policies, and in many cases making adjustments to their previously passed laws concerning telehealth.
Established by the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 (CAA), Rural Emergency Hospital (REH) became a new designation in the Medicare program and an eligible originating site for telehealth delivered services (to go into effect in 2023). The designation is meant for facilities that convert from either a critical access hospital (CAH) or a rural hospital with less than 50 beds and that do not provide acute care inpatient services (although there is an exception for skilled nursing facility (SNF) services). However, some rural hospitals and CAHs are hesitating to adopt the new model.
On November 1, 2022, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released their final rule for the CY 2023 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS). CMS had previously released their proposed version on July 7, 2022. After receiving submitted feedback from the public during the comment period, CMS published the final version that, unless otherwise stated, will have policies going into effect January 1, 2023. Much of what was proposed in July remains in this final version.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released their final Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) for CY 2023. The PFS are the policies that the agency will be implementing for Medicare beginning on January 1, 2023, unless otherwise noted. This is the typical vehicle utilized by CMS to make administrative changes to telehealth policy in the Medicare program. This fact sheet reviews the telehealth related items that CMS has decided to finalize for CY 2023.
