Newsletters

POSTED: December 26th, 2020
POSTED IN: EM Pulse - The Official Newsletter of MOCEP, November/December 2020,

As discussed in previous Regs & Eggs posts, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and other offices within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have instituted numerous telehealth flexibilities during the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) that have greatly enhanced your ability to provide emergency telehealth services. In the calendar year 2021 physician fee schedule (PFS) final reg, CMS examines a handful of these telehealth flexibilities and determines which of them should be extended past the end of the PHE.

After the PFS final reg was released, I received numerous telehealth-related questions from you all—not about the telehealth flexibilities CMS specifically addresses in the reg, but about what the agency doesn’t address. In fact, there are many telehealth flexibilities that are in place during the PHE that CMS doesn’t even mention in the reg. And why is that? Not because these flexibilities aren’t important, but because in most cases CMS doesn’t have the legal authority to extend them past the end of the PHE.

So, let’s break down what telehealth policies are in the reg, what’s not included, and what that means for you going forward. Click here to read the full article.