AHCA/NCAL recently joined efforts with 448 health care, consumer, and technology organizations in sending a
stakeholder letter requesting Congressional Leadership to implement a long-term telehealth fix in the next legislative package to ensure stability and clarity for patients, providers, and the health care system as a whole. In the letter, the organizations strongly urged Congress to work as quickly as possible to reinstate Medicare telehealth access and to work with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to ensure retroactive payment for practitioners that maintained patient access to crucial services during the lapse in care.
Why This is Important Without Congressional action, many AHCA/NCAL members and their residents in skilled nursing facilities, assisted living communities, and residences for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (ID/DD) will continue to face disruptions in care.
- A research brief from Brown University found that expiration of the expanded telehealth coverage has cut off access to telehealth services for more than four million Medicare beneficiaries.
- There have been financial disruptions for 30 percent of health care providers that deliver telehealth visits to Medicare beneficiaries.