Alliance for Connected Care

YOUR VOICE IS NEEDED Please join us in urging Congressional leaders to extend #telehealth in an end-of-year package for a full year or more. We believe it is important to reiterate this message as Congress considers a shorter timeline for government funding. Enhanced #access to telehealth services serves as a lifeline to patients across the country. It is imperative that Congress act to create certainty in 2025. Given the time-sensitive nature of this request, please join through this form no later than COB Wednesday, December 11, 2024. https://lnkd.in/gvdb5QGa

Late last week, Reps Steel (R-CA), Lee (D-NV), Smith (R-NE), Schneider (D-IL) as well as Senators Daines (R-MT) and Cortez Masto (D-NV) led a 30+ Member-led letter to House & Senate Leadership urging for an extension of telehealth services for millions of Americans who have HDHP-HSAs. The letter is timely as we get closer to its expiration and mentions policies, we all have worked on, including the Telehealth Expansion Act which passed the House Committee on Ways & Means in 2023 - making this policy permanent. Let's hope this bipartisan and bicameral push allows for an extension of pre-deductible telehealth for hardworking Americans. #telehealth #hdhp #hsa

If we are going to shake up the health care system in the next few years, can we please address the absurd regulation of care across state lines? Thanksgiving is a good time to illustrate just how ridiculous these policies are. If you travel for Thanksgiving and have a medical emergency (hopefully not), chances are you can't talk to your own doctor because that doctor is unlikely to be licensed in the state you are visiting. If you or someone you love needs specialized care that is not available in your area, chances are you are spending Thanksgiving away from home because you have to be in a state where the specialist is licensed. If you are a college student going to your home in another state for Thanksgiving, you can't talk to the therapist with whom you have built a relationship at school. Providers go to nationally-accredited schools and take nationally-accredited exams, and follow nationally-recognized clinical guidelines. Why can't they practice nationally? Because of unnecessary state regulations. Incoming President Trump put out an Executive Order in 2017 pointing out the problems with a patient having to be in the same state as the practitioner. Let's do something about it this time around! Chad Ellimoottil, MD, MS Ateev Mehrotra, Helen Hughes MD, MPH Brian Blase

The New York Times: So Many Days Lost at the Doctor’s Office Paula Span More than 17 percent of older #Medicare beneficiaries report difficulty traveling to doctor’s offices, and more than half of those beneficiaries are accompanied by someone else — doubling the burden. Home care, hospital-at-home programs and #telehealth eliminate some of the inconvenience. Telehealth spiked during the early Covid years: In 2020, almost half of traditional Medicare beneficiaries had at least one telehealth visit. By late last year, less than 13 percent did — still a higher proportion than before the pandemic. But without congressional action, some of Medicare’s policies expanding telehealth will expire on December 31, 2024. https://lnkd.in/evSxU2J7

ICYMI: DEA Extends Telemedicine Prescription Waiver One More Year “We are pleased to see the DEA act to ensure #patient care is not interrupted next month,” Christopher J Adamec, executive director of the Alliance for Connected Care, which spearheaded a letter signed by more than 300 organizations urging Congress to take action, said in a press release issued Friday. “We look forward to working with the Trump Administration next year to finish the work they started in 2020 through a permanent rulemaking that creates access to comprehensive medical care, including a controlled substance when necessary, through #telemedicine.” HealthLeaders https://lnkd.in/gVJjXHW8 Healthcare Dive https://lnkd.in/g9GJKerb

Pleased to share that the DEA released the third temporary extension of telehealth prescribing of controlled medications following the advocacy efforts that the Alliance led this year.  This rule is a clean 1-year extension through December 31, 2025. Noting that I do still expect to see a permanent rulemaking proposal, however there is no longer time to finish it this year -- making it a 2025 issue.) Statement: https://lnkd.in/ef6SsXsg Rule: https://lnkd.in/e4ejQGQS  

The Alliance for Connected Care applauds the third temporary extension of controlled substance prescribing via telemedicine rulemaking by the DEA. This one-year extension is an important step to ensure predictable access for patients, as requested by the Alliance for Connected Care and more than 300 other organizations earlier this year. “We are pleased to see the DEA act to ensure patient care is not interrupted next month,” said Christopher J Adamec, executive director of the Alliance for Connected Care. “We look forward to working with the Trump Administration next year to finish the work they started in 2020 through a permanent rulemaking that creates access to comprehensive medical care, including a controlled substance when necessary, through telemedicine.” https://lnkd.in/gWukz8h2

The Alliance for Connected Care sent a letter to Congressional leaders on Friday, re-emphasizing the importance of #telehealth to millions of Americans. and seeks continued public commitment to moving forward with non-controversial, committee-vetted, bipartisan extension of telehealth prior to the lapse of statutory authority in December. Read the full letter here: https://lnkd.in/gjK9pmhe

Healthcare Dive: How the Health Care Industry is Reacting to Election Rebecca Pifer Alliance for Connected Care “There are few issues more bipartisan than access to health care through technology. The Alliance worked with the first Trump Administration to enable #remotemonitoring and then #telehealth in the face of a global pandemic and we look forward to working with the incoming Administration and Congress to finally enshrine #permanent access to telehealth into statute.” https://lnkd.in/gyW5sMRa

A JAMA Network Open study suggests the potential for #telehealth to help reduce office-based low-value care and could reassure policymakers concerned about telehealth encouraging unnecessary or wasteful care due to added convenience. In this cohort study of Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries who received care from primary care practices in Michigan, office-based low-value care services were lower among practices with high telehealth use, and there was no association between practice-level telehealth use and rates of most other low-value care services not delivered in the office. University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation Terrence Liu @Ziwei Zhu @Michael Thompson Jeffrey McCullough Michelle Hechuan Hou @Chiang-Hua Chang Mark Fendrick Chad Ellimoottil, MD, MS https://lnkd.in/gvJX6tBp