Currently, debate continues to ensue about the position of telehealth in the healthcare industry. Most specifically, several stakeholders are discussing about how reimbursement through Medicaid and Medicare can be done for telehealth services. By definition, telehealth can be described as provision of healthcare services by use of technology or a remote system (Tuckson, Edmunds, & Hodgkins, 2017). That means that face to face contact is not necessary for patients suffering from particular conditions to receive care and treatment. For instance, a person with an illness can contact a physician through video-conferencing, and the physician subsequently offers professional assistance to the patient. There is a high likelihood that telehealth services will increase in the near future but, presently, there are minimal policies about this aspect.
Already the senator for Colorado has introduced a bill in the United States Congress, popularly known as “Telehealth Innovation and Improvement Act of 2017”. The bill seeks to compel the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to test the impact of including telehealth services in Medicare health care delivery reform models (GovTrack.us, 2019). The bill was introduced in the senate in 2017 but was not enacted. According to the United States constitution, both the House and Senate must pass a bill in identical form and then subsequently signed by the president to become law.
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However, the State of California has made tremendous steps in regard to formulating regulations about telehealth. The State passed the Telemedicine Development Act of 1996 to keep up with the increasing needs for telemedicine (Telemedicine Regulations in California, 2019). At that time, the State required that the patient present an informed consent in writing. Nevertheless, in 2015, the State amended the act and currently, verbal consent is also legally binding. Although nationally little steps have been made, it is projected that telehealth coverage will be included in Medicare Advantage plans by the start of 2020 (Wicklund, 2019). Therefore, that is a good indication that proper policies governing telehealth will be formed and implemented soon.
References
GovTrack.us (2019). S.787—115th Congress: Telehealth Innovation and Improvement Act of 2017. Retrieved from https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/s787
Telemedicine Regulations in California (2019). Chiron Health. Retrieved from https://chironhealth.com/telemedicine/regulations/california/
Tuckson, R. V., Edmunds, M., & Hodgkins, M. L. (2017). Telehealth. New England Journal of Medicine , 377 (16), 1585-1592.
Wicklund, E. (2019). CMS at ATA: Medicare coverage of telehealth will take some time. mHealth Intelligence. Retrieved from https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/cms-at-ata-medicare-coverage-of-telehealth-will-take-some-time
