President Donald Trump has signed the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act (HR 6074).
The American Academy of Family Physicians supported the package, which sends supplemental funding to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, and the National Institutes of Health, as well as to the U.S. State Department and the Small Business Administration to help manage COVID-19.
The House of Representatives passed the measure 415-2 on March 4, and the Senate cleared it for enactment (96-1) the following day. The bill, summarized here, also:
- Allows the Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary to waive the Medicare restrictions on telehealth payment during certain emergency periods. (This ONLY applies to Medicare. Medicaid is a state run program and states may have different requirements or coverage policies with respect to telehealth. Commercial insurers may have varying policies as well).
- Modifies the Social Security Act to give authority waive requirements during national emergencies.
- Adds “telehealth service” (meaning professional consultations, office visits, and office psychiatry services (and as subsequently modified by the Secretary)) to the list of items that the HHS Secretary is authorized to temporarily waive or modify the application of in any emergency area (or portion of such an area) during any portion of an emergency period. This applies to all Medicare originating site payment restrictions, however facility fees remain limited to traditional originating sites.
- Limits the use of telehealth services to those physicians who have furnished services to the patient in the three years prior to the telehealth service.
- Allows a “qualified provider” which includes any physician or practitioner practicing under the same tax identification number (TIN) to provide telehealth services.
- Limits the use of phone to one that has “audio and video capabilities that are used for two-way real-time interactive communication.”
View the following recently-released Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services fact sheets on coverage of COVID-19: