Morris Leader

Washington, D.C. – Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill (NJ-11) is leading a bipartisan effort to ensure Americans on Medicare and Medicaid do not lose access to critical telehealth services that are set to expire on May 11, 2023 when the Biden Administration lifts the Public Health Emergency. She is calling on the President to protect the coverage of these flexible and accessible healthcare options through executive action.  

Since 2020, telehealth has been critical in improving health equity, allowing millions of Americans to access high quality care, particularly mental health services. Extending this deadline will prevent New Jerseyans from losing access to critical care and allow providers to continue seeing their patients with fewer interruptions in treatments. 

“Our goal is to provide everyone, particularly rural and underserved communities, veterans, and practitioners, the virtual options they need to stay healthy and the leeway for patients to receive care when and where they need it. And we believe that extending these telehealth flexibilities will prevent confusion and hardships in accessing healthcare services,” said the bipartisan group of lawmakers in their letter to President Biden. 

The bipartisan group of co-signers of this letter include: Rep. Don Bacon (NE-02), Rep. Sanford Bishop (GA-02), Rep. Josh Gottheimer (NJ-05), Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez (WA-03), Rep. Jen A. Kiggans (VA-02), Gabe Vasquez (NM-02), and Rep. Brittany Pettersen (CO-07).

The letter received recognition from the Alliance for Connected Care, an organization working to ensure that all providers are permitted to deliver and be adequately compensated for providing safe, high quality care using telehealth.

“We applaud Congresswoman Sherrill for being a leader in advancing continued telehealth progress and addressing remaining barriers to telehealth access. This commitment is critical to ensure patients can continue to access vital health care through telehealth beyond the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency.” said the Alliance for Connected Care.

Congresswoman Sherrill has been a leading advocate for telehealth and the benefits access to it provides Americans. In 2020, she championed bipartisan legislation to expand practitioners eligible for Medicare reimbursement. Read more about the Expanded Telehealth Access Act here.

The full text of the letter is available below:

Dear Mr. President,

On January 30, 2023, your Administration announced its plan to terminate the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE), which will impact the operations of our nation’s health care system.  As part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, Congress extended many telehealth provisions and programs induced by the pandemic through December 31, 2024. Now, we urge your Administration to take all possible steps to protect additional telehealth flexibilities tied to the PHE through at least that same date.

Telehealth is an essential and transformative part of keeping Americans healthy. Since 2020, telehealth's use has expanded as a tool for patients seeking care, particularly mental health services. However, in the coming months, access could be in danger when PHE-related flexibilities end.

As some flexibilities have been extended while others have not, we fear a patchwork system will confuse consumers, decrease healthcare access, and endanger the telehealth system that has grown significantly over the past three years. It is essential for the efficient continuity of operations of telehealth that the Administration do everything in its power to protect the following expiring provisions:

1.   Provider Address/Enrollment, allowing practitioners to work from home while conducting telehealth appointments, but listing their enrolled practicing location as the billing address.

2.   Virtual Prescriptions Flexibility, allowing appropriate prescriptions to be delivered by DEA-registered practitioners.

3.   Licensure, allowing out-of-state practitioners to practice telehealth across state lines, provided that they meet all requirements to practice medicine in the state in which the patient is located.

4.   Direct Supervision, continuing to let healthcare trainees be supervised in academic medical settings remotely and allowing telehealth services to be included in definition of direct supervision services.

5.   Health Care Plan Mid-Year Changes, allowing insurance companies to amend their policies twice in one year if the action expands telehealth coverage or increases telehealth usage.

6.   Telehealth as an Excepted Benefit, designating telehealth as an excepted benefit for individuals, regardless of the hours they work or their title at the job and those who are ineligible for full employer-sponsored medical benefits.

7.   PHE Telehealth Billing Codes, making permanent the Medicare billing codes that are currently set to expire at the end of 2023, which provide over 40 Medicare telehealth service codes that let patients take advantage of speech therapy, eye exams, nursing, and psychological services, among others.

Our goal is to provide everyone, particularly rural and underserved communities, veterans, and practitioners, the virtual options they need to stay healthy and the leeway for patients to receive care when and where they need it. And we believe that extending these telehealth flexibilities will prevent confusion and hardships in accessing healthcare services. Moreover, states across the country have changed their own laws to adapt to this virtualization of care under the pandemic flexibilities. Rescinding federal flexibilities will only add to a patchwork of state regulations, which have differing rules on telehealth flexibilities.

According to the CDC and NIH, telehealth has increased the likelihood of successfully prescribing prescriptions, decreased overdoses, and was a popular option to receive care.[1]Additionally, studies show that many Americans—particularly in rural communities, and particularly veterans—do not have convenient access to mental health professionals[2][3] and poor transportation options and a patient’s distance to a hospital can increase negative health outcomes.[4] Telehealth has become a stable part of the U.S. healthcare system, benefiting patients and physicians alike.

We encourage the Administration to take swift action to protect expiring telehealth flexibilities beyond the PHE and continue to support telehealth expansion across all sectors of the US healthcare market. We also urge the various agencies of your Administration to work in lockstep to develop uniform, cohesive, and integrated guidance and telehealth provisions that do not harm the functioning of the overall healthcare system and ease access to healthcare professionals for all American patients.

Original source can be found here