Find-A-Code Articles, Published 2024, August 1

Telehealth Policies in the Post-Pandemic Era

by Kate Choi
Aug 1st, 2024

Earlier this month, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released its proposed Physician Fee Schedule for 2025. A major component of the proposed rule is the telehealth policies, particularly given that major Medicare telehealth waivers are set to expire at the end of 2024. CMS has limited statutory authority to extend most of the telehealth polices that were expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic. That authority rests with Congress.

Unfortunately, if no congressional action is taken soon, major telehealth polices will soon return to what they were like pre-COVID-19. In other words, unless Congress acts, Medicare will no longer be reimbursing providers for certain telehealth services that enrollees got used to during the pandemic years.

To understand why this is important, let’s touch a little bit on what telehealth even is. Telehealth can be broadly defined as the use of telecommunication technologies to provide and receive clinical healthcare. Such technologies include videoconferencing, audio calls, and digital health platforms such as mobile phone apps. During the COVID-19 stay-at-home era, a good portion of the general U.S. population found telehealth services to be useful, and while utilization rates have decreased a bit in recent years, many are still depending on it as a flexible way to access healthcare services.

Naturally, telehealth was perceived to have great potential during the COVID-19 pandemic. Following stark decreases in the availability of in-person healthcare services during the pandemic, telehealth was sought to address the health disparities that were predicted to negatively affect vulnerable populations. To meet the demand in the shift towards virtual healthcare for these groups, there was widespread adoption of telehealth services and expansions in telehealth policies.

These expansions were driven by the cessation of some in-person services, which made virtual healthcare the only option for many patients.

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This article originally published on July 31, 2024 by RACmonitor.