What’s coming for health IT policy and law in 2023

With Congress providing telehealth waivers as part of a bus spending bill by the end of 2022, delaying the “remote healthcare cliff” for two years, HIMSS said know they are now ready to make a case for permanent reimbursement for virtual care.

Also on its policy agenda for next year: advocating data standardization, providing input to rule-making on interoperability, and engaging with agencies and states to increase access to healthcare remotely. We spoke to government relations team HIMSS for their thoughts on those priorities and beyond in 2023 and beyond.

Make the case of telehealth for cost control

Tom Leary, senior vice president, explains that Telehealth has been shown to help reduce the burden on healthcare providers and improve accessibility. President and Head of Government Relations at HIMSS, the parent company of Healthcare IT News.

Budget leaders asked, “How do you really know what the impact will be on the people of Medicare and the Medicare Trust? We currently have three years of data on the impact on the Trust. Medicare,” he said.

While telehealth waivers during the pandemic have answered many questions at the federal level, a two-year extension to provide telehealth in the plans The high deductible health plan with health savings accounts included in the final legal package of 2022 has opened up a new opportunity to pursue making a permanent change.

HIMSS will “use the next two years to collect additional data to inform both Congress and the CBO about cost avoidance or cost control aspects,” Leary said.

In addition to providing permanent telehealth coverage, simplifying access for patients is another goal of the mission-driven nonprofit, whose goal is to transform the ecosystem. global health through the power of information and technology.

“HIMSS has also actively supported the Health Connectivity Act, and a bill is expected to be reintroduced this year,” said Amanda Krzepicki, director of government relations at HIMSS.

In 2023, HIMSS will not only work to support telehealth even further with truly powerful data on how these services help patients achieve broader reform, but it will also work at the state level with licensing boards to discuss how telehealth can reach more patients.

HIMSS members will communicate the long-term impact of a variety of providers and care facilities as they relate to reimbursements.

One example is voice calls and how reimbursement rates are set up based on the care needed and the appropriateness of care delivery through that channel.

Audio reimbursement can be useful, especially in areas where Internet connections are unreliable.

By July 2022, all state Medicaid programs offer at least some sound-only coverage for behavioral health, according to a recent report by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

According to the report, most state Medicaid programs want to continue expanding telehealth and have broad authority to do so without federal approval.

Krzepicki says that while we still need to be concerned about the bad guys in the space, the data “doesn’t really hold up in assuming that costs have increased due to usage in the telehealth space.”

“What’s really important to HIMSS is to make sure that we are, at a minimum, using technology in a way that improves access to care for our patients,” added Leary.

Promote widespread broadband adoption

HIMSS worked with the Senate Broadband Caucus to expand broadband on an ongoing basis.

“Broadband access is absolutely an issue that we’re continuing to push,” Leary said.

The Infrastructure Improvement Act has several billion dollars already on it, he said, and HIMSS will work next year on a last-mile connection with the Federal Communications Commission.

The agency has launched more broadband expansion programs to increase connectivity to more communities, such as the Affordable Connectivity Access Grant Program, which will announce grantees on or before March 10.

That program provides funding to eligible state, local, and tribal housing agencies as well as nonprofit and community-based organizations and others for outreach activities. raise awareness and encourage households receiving federal housing assistance to participate in the ACP.

The FCC will also award outreach grants to “neutral, trusted third-party organizations, such as schools and school districts, or other state or local government entities. “

Craig Settles wrote for Healthcare IT News in November about how the effectiveness of telehealth depends on meeting demand for broadband: “ACP subscriptions are free, but many people don’t. would like.

Settles, an advocate of telehealth and broadband, said: “Tele-health care can win the fences. Global demand for healthcare could be a win-win. make ACP combined with telehealth a win-win for everyone.”

Access to home health care or access to clinic healthcare is just as important as access to education, Leary repeats.

He noted that previous legislation related to funding for broadband, such as the US Resilience and Resilience Act of 2009, has defined what needs to be done to access funding.

What’s less clear this time around, Leary said, is how communities need support to access funding.

“How do you leverage it for healthcare and how does healthcare engage in those discussions?” Leary said.

Create standard synergy for ‘Interoperability 3.0’

For years, there has been back-and-forth debate about what to do with the supplier burden, says HIMSS government relations experts.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued a proposal to develop rules to improve the electronic exchange of healthcare data and streamline processes related to pre-authorization to increase interoperability.

HIMSS members are interested in seeing common information transport standards for most medical and pharmaceutical data used in the rule-making process.

“I think CMS is seeing handwriting on the wall and is really taking advantage of the fact that it’s part of the public discourse,” Leary said.

Comments are due in early March. In his comments, Leary said he hopes HIMSS will emphasize the use of the latest information sharing standards HL7, use cases from the Integrated Healthcare Enterprise, and a combination of that. with the standards of the National Council on Prescription Drug Programs.

“So we’re creating some synergy, not creating something that increases the burden on the supplier,” he said.

Another priority for members is to see CMS progressing with the Trusted Exchange and Common Agreement Framework, or TEFCA, and qualified health information networks.

“Make sure what [Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT] are suggesting, CMS is based on and doesn’t take us in another direction in terms of interoperability,” Leary said.

Struggling to make patient records more seamless

Sections of the Substance Abuse Privacy Regulations restrict the sharing of mental health records with providers – even if the patient has provided access.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released a notice of proposed rulemaking on December 2 calling for significant changes to better regulate drug use privacy regulations. like– 42 CFR Part 2 – with HIPAA. The deadline for comments is January 31.

Krzepicki said HIMSS is a founding member of the Patient ID Now Coalition and has long called for national patient identification for patient safety, explaining that the lack of access to records Substance abuse can interfere with care and even cause death.

Changes to the rule could make it easier for providers to share patient records and could help make data cleaner.

“We won’t lose information when it comes to patient-to-patient access, and patients won’t have to sign waivers that allow certain doctors to view different input from different providers,” she said. is different”.