Representative Guthrie discusses cybersecurity, prior authorizations and telehealth

Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., today addressed attendees of AHA’s 2024 Annual Membership Meeting and touched on many of the biggest issues in health care: cybersecurity; prior authorization and denials of care; extensions for expiring telehealth provisions; and how government and hospitals can work together to find solutions to these and other problems.

Guthrie, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health, also spoke this morning before a subcommittee hearing examining cybersecurity in the health care sector following the Change Healthcare cyberattack. He emphasized that he wanted Congress, hospitals and the health care sector to be partners in efforts to bolster cybersecurity efforts. “To have some top-down mandate on hospitals — we don’t want that to happen,” he said.

When it comes to prior authorization among Medicare Advantage plans, Guthrie said “I’ve talked to several of the major Medicare Advantage plans, and I’ve told them if they don’t get a handle on prior authorization … then that’s not acceptable. If you can’t figure it out, Congress is absolutely going to look into this.”

When it came to telehealth, “the genie is out of the bottle,” Guthrie said. “It’s convenient, it’s helpful … there will be an extension of telehealth.”

Guthrie repeatedly talked about the importance of a bipartisan approach to health care-related legislation. “Every member of Congress has hospitals in their districts as major employers and major providers of care,” he said. “We all need to figure this out together.”