Passage of CHRONIC Care Act expands Medicare’s telehealth and telemedicine coverage with new reimbursement rules

This past Friday, President Trump signed a new budget deal with several provisions that loosen Medicare restrictions on telehealth and telemedicine reimbursement.

The deal breaks down barriers for Medicare patients with chronic disease to access care and expands telehealth coverage under Medicare Advantage Plan B, beginning in 2020. Specifically, the law frames budget goals for the next two years and includes the Creating High-Quality Results and Outcomes Necessary to Improve Chronic Care Act of 2017. Now, legislators are freed to push more Medicare money into telemedicine by allowing Medicare to cover more services for treating chronically ill patients.

With this new law in place, the timing for providers to proactively approach a digital health strategy for telemedicine is now. According to AARP, currently there are 44 million beneficiaries—some 15 percent of the U.S. population— enrolled in the Medicare program. Enrollment is expected to rise to 79 million by 2030. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) also found a prevalence of comorbidities in Medicare patients, with more than two-thirds -- or 21.4 million beneficiaries -- having at least two or more chronic conditions. To fill gaps in care and target chronic disease interventions for aging Americans, a key element of success for hospitals and health systems will be implementing a scalable telehealth infrastructure to support the future influx of Medicare patients.

An ideal approach to implementing telehealth into provider and administrative workflows is to introduce telemedicine architecture into one service line, with the option to scale to support the full enterprise. Full-stack software approaches with cloud-based digital clinic offerings can manage virtual services and can be scaled across a health enterprise and the care continuum. Modern virtual care platforms such as this allow for a cohesive and complete suite of services.

Turnkey enterprise-level telehealth is a necessary element for launching digital health strategy. Those with chronic disease are especially hungry for telehealth as their need to meet with multiple providers in various locations for an array of care grows. Providers are also seeking effective ways to manage their growing patient populations and intervene with care when needed most. By securely integrating and extending care remotely, scalable telehealth can meet the demands of today’s healthcare consumer and Medicare patients for greater access to timely, high-quality care at an affordable cost.

Providers need to remain competitive in today’s healthcare ecosystem and offering on-demand digital visits to some of their most frequently seen patients— those with chronic conditions— is a necessary ingredient to achieve that. However, it is well known that telemedicine expansion in the U.S. has been stalled by limited reimbursement. By passing the CHRONIC Care Act, the government is taking a proactive step in the right direction to improve the millions of Medicare beneficiaries’ access to care and to support hospitals and health systems as they move into virtual care offerings.

The views, opinions and positions expressed within these guest posts are those of the author alone and do not represent those of Becker's Hospital Review/Becker's Healthcare. The accuracy, completeness and validity of any statements made within this article are not guaranteed. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions or representations. The copyright of this content belongs to the author and any liability with regards to infringement of intellectual property rights remains with them.

Copyright © 2024 Becker's Healthcare. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy. Cookie Policy. Linking and Reprinting Policy.

 

Featured Whitepapers

Featured Webinars