PCHAlliance Supports Legislation to Extend Access to Digital Therapeutics

Feb 09, 2018

By Jody Hoffman, Senior Vice President, Managing Director, Wexler Walker, Washington, DC

On Friday, the Personal Connected Health Alliance (PCHAlliance), along with HIMSS and 18 other organizations, signed and sent a letter to Congress urging passage of legislation that would ensure our aging population is able to realize the benefits of digital technologies to manage their health. This legislation includes a set of four connected care legislative provisions that will expand access to telehealth and remote monitoring for Medicare beneficiaries by:

  • Establishing Medicare reimbursement for monthly telehealth physician visits  to maintain eligibility for home dialysis – “Expanding Access to Home Dialysis Therapy (Section 102 of the CHRONIC Care Act/HR 3178)
  • Permitting Medicare Advantage to provide telehealth as a basic benefit (Section 303 of the CHRONIC Care Act/HR 3727)
  • Permitting Telehealth to authorize Treatment for Stroke (Section 305 of the CHRONIC Care Act/ HR 1148)
  • Extending the Independence at Home Act Demonstration which may use remote testing and monitoring to conduct home based care (Section 101 of the CHRONIC Care Act/HR 3263)

PCHAlliance's U.S. Policy Working Group has long advocated for legislation that allows Medicare to cover the full range of evidence-based connected health technologies – both live, synchronous, audio visual delivery of clinical services and asynchronous remote patient monitoring.  These four legislative provisions have broad bipartisan support, have been considered and passed by the House and Senate, either as part of the Senate’s  CHRONIC Care Act or as stand-alone legislation.  We are urging Congress to include all the connected care Medicare legislative provisions passed by the House and Senate Committees to be included in this week’s legislation to continue government programs and operations (the “Continuing Resolution or CR”).  

“As our society continues to become a truly mobile society, telehealth and remote patient monitoring are important tools clinicians can use to not only provide care but to maintain closer relationships with their patients. The baby boom generation (of which I am a member) adds 10,000 persons a day to the Medicare rolls and telehealth can be such a valuable addition to the doctor’s bag for diagnosis, treatment, chronic care management, patient education and communication. Our clinicians need this legislation and we baby boomers want to use telehealth.” Hank Fanberg, Technology Advocacy at Christus Health and co-chair of the PCHAlliance US Policy Working Group

Learn more about telehealth offerings at the Connected Health Experience at HIMSS18 in Las Vegas.

Jody Hoffman will speak on March 5 at the Digital and Personal Connected Health Summit, a pre-conference event at HIMSS18.

PCHAlliance members are encouraged to participate in the PCHAlliance U.S. Policy Working Group, contribute to the ongoing discussion and weigh in on important policy issues. For more information, contact Jody Toser (jtoser@pchalliance.org).