AHA urges additional action to expand telehealth

The AHA urged HHS and CMS to consider taking additional actions that would expand the ability of hospitals and health systems to use telehealth in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Among other actions, AHA urged the agencies to:

• Allow HOPDs to bill for outpatient psychiatry programs delivered via telehealth so that behavioral health patients can continue to receive critical services;
• Waive the remaining statutory restrictions on practitioners eligible to provide services via telehealth and allow them to provide telehealth services from their homes without updating their Medicare enrollment; and  
• Allow critical access hospitals to directly bill for telehealth services and allow them to be paid according to the payment methodology they already have selected.