Lawmakers: HHS Must Keep Telehealth Permanent for Medicare Patients
Senate Telehealth Working Group co-Chair Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and nine other lawmakers urged the Department of Health and Human Services to “work with Congress to ensure that all Medicare beneficiaries have permanent access to telehealth services before the temporary waivers…
expire on December 31, 2024.” Lawmakers have long supported proposals making permanent the current temporary lift enacted at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic (see 2008170064) of some restrictions on Medicare reimbursement for telehealth services and coverage of those services at federally qualified health centers and rural health clinics. “Enacting permanent telehealth legislation will require collaboration between HHS and Congress in the year ahead,” Schatz and the lawmakers said in a letter to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. “We urge you to communicate to Congress and the public the authorities, appropriations, resources, and other supports needed to achieve this goal.” 2024 will be “a pivotal year for telehealth policy, and it is critical that we enact long-term legislation” before year’s end, the lawmakers said: “Telehealth is a cost-effective way to improve access to care, especially for rural and underserved communities. Telehealth also allows patients to choose a medical provider that best suits their personal medical needs. Medicare beneficiaries have come to rely on expanded access to telehealth and are satisfied with the care they have received. We must provide patients and clinicians long-term certainty about access to care through telehealth.” Others signing the letter included Senate Communications Subcommittee ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., and House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Doris Matsui, D-Calif.