Telehealth and the New Normal By Healiant
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ately, it seems the question on everyone’s mind is, when? When will this all end? When will things go back to normal? In many ways, the real answer to this question is never. The way that healthcare is delivered is one of those ways that will likely never return to the recent view of normal. The new normal is evolving rapidly, driven by new CMS guidance and the evolving needs of providers and patients during this public health crisis. In early March, the president and CMS expanded Medicare’s telehealth benefits under the 1135 waiver authority and the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act. The net effect is that now clinicians can provide more services to new or established beneficiaries across the country via telehealth. Prior to this announcement, Medicare paid for very little and the fee schedule was very different from the one providers used for in-office visits. Telehealth can now be billed for most clinical visit types and providers will be reimbursed under the Physician Fee Schedule at the same rates as in-person services. Medicaid and most private payers have or will be mandated to follow suit. This new policy and payment scheme have allowed for beneficiaries across the country to have some access to their care providers and, perhaps more dramatically, for providers to continue to practice medicine, albeit remotely. The suddenness of the onset of this pandemic and the shelter-in-place directives saw very few providers, regardless of size, prepared to respond to the changes in telehealth reimbursement. While there were many technologies built to support telemedicine, they were not broadly adopted, and most practices were not prepared to respond with a real and compliant technology solution to remotely support their patient populations.
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It is highly unlikely that this “no rules” environment will persist any longer than our current emergency lasts.
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VGM Playbook: Technology and the Patient Care Continuum
CMS, understanding this challenge, additionally waived the long-required HIPAA compliance rules that normally govern electronic communication of patient health information. Zoom, Skype, and GoToMeeting are now fair game for providers to deliver services to their patients. It is highly unlikely that this “no rules” environment will persist any longer than our current emergency lasts, but in the meantime, most providers have been able to stay engaged with their patients and continue to operate. It is important to note that while some services are being provided through telehealth during this crisis, many clinical practices have seen reductions of 50% or more to their visit volume and billing. Clinical practice visit volume and billing have reduced by
50% or more.
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Telehealth has been an essential tool—it’s now clear that virtual care will be a permanent component of how care is delivered.
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Telehealth has been an essential tool for a sheltered population, and it is becoming increasingly clear that virtual care will be a permanent component of the way care is delivered and accessed. Telehealth is more of a concept than it is any one specific thing. And it has been described in many ways—virtual care, remote monitoring, telemedicine, telecare, to name a few. These terms all speak to the same notion—of providing healthcare remotely by means of technology.
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