A number of industry associations, vendors, and large health systems are asking the U.S. government to waive restrictions on telemedicine in the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP).
The organizations, which include the American Telemedicine Association (ATA) and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), have joined to write new U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Matthews Burwell on the subject. They are also urging Burwell to request comment on the use of these technologies by accountable care organizations (ACOs) in the forthcoming notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) for the MSSP.
The group said that section 1834 of the Social Security Act has resulted in arduous restrictions on telehealth services that limit patient access to new technologies, effectively discouraging providers from utilizing advanced information and communications technology in their practice.
For example, current restrictions provide no telehealth coverage for about 80% of Medicare beneficiaries who happen to live in the 1,200 metropolitan counties not included in the definition of "rural." There is also no coverage for "store and forward" services (such as transmission of medical images) for the 43 million beneficiaries who live outside of Alaska and Hawaii, they said.
Others signatories to the letter included Baxter, Health IT Now, Personal Connected Health Alliance, Association of Clinicians for the Underserved, Christus Health, Intel, QualComm, ACT, Panasonic, and the Telecommunications Industry Association.
