NEWS
CMS Adds New Telehealth Services to Medicare Coverage Since the beginning of the public health emergency, CMS has added over 135 services to the Medicare telehealth services list. services delivered via telehealth to Medicaid and CHIP has expanded the list of telehealth services that Medicare beneficiaries between March and June of this year, repFee-For-Service will pay for during the coronavirus disease resenting an increase of more than 2,600% when com2019 (COVID-19) Public Health Emergency (PHE). pared to the same period from the prior year. The data CMS is also providing additional also shows that adults ages 19-64 support to state Medicaid and Chilreceived the most services delivered dren’s Health Insurance Program Medicare will begin via telehealth, although there was (CHIP) agencies in their efforts to substantial variance across both age paying eligible expand access to telehealth. groups and states. practitioners who For the first time using a new To further drive telehealth, CMS expedited process, CMS is adding 11 furnish these newly is releasing a new supplement to its new services to the Medicare teleState Medicaid & CHIP Telehealth added telehealth health services list since the publicaToolkit: Policy Considerations for services effective tion of the May 1, 2020, COVID-19 States Expanding Use of Telehealth, Interim Final Rule with comment COVID-19 Version that provides immediately, and period (IFC). Medicare will begin numerous new examples and insights for the duration paying eligible practitioners who into lessons learned from states of the PHE. furnish these newly added telehealth that have implemented telehealth services effective immediately, and changes. The updated supplemenfor the duration of the PHE. tal information is intended to help states strategically think through how they explain and These new telehealth services include: clarify to providers and other stakeholders which policies ʯ Certain neurostimulator analysis and are temporary or permanent. It also helps states identify programming services services that can be accessed through telehealth, which ʯ Cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation services. providers may deliver those services, the ways providers may use in order to deliver services through telehealth, as Since the beginning of the public health emergency, well as the circumstances under which telehealth can be CMS has added over 135 services to the Medicare telereimbursed once the PHE expires. health services list – such as emergency department visits, The toolkit includes approaches and tools states can initial inpatient and nursing facility visits, and discharge use to communicate with providers on utilizing telehealth day management services. for patient care. It updates and consolidates in one place With the latest action, Medicare will pay for 144 serthe Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and resources for vices performed via telehealth. states to consider as they begin planning beyond the temCMS also announced that in an effort to provide porary flexibilities provided in response to the pandemic. greater transparency on telehealth access in Medicaid To view the Medicaid and CHIP data snapshot and CHIP, it is releasing, for the first time, a preliminary on telehealth utilization during the PHE, please visit: Medicaid and CHIP data snapshot on telehealth utilizawww.medicaid.gov/resources-for-states/downloads/ tion during the PHE. This snapshot shows, among other medicaid-chip-beneficiaries-COVID-19-snapshot-datathings, that there have been more than 34.5 million through-20200630.pdf. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)
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December 2020
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