Expanding Medicare Telehealth Use after PHE

1. Expanding Medicare Telehealth Use after PHE Medical Billers and Coders

2. CY 2023 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Proposed Rule On 7th July 2022, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a proposed rule that announces and solicits public comments on proposed policy changes for Medicare payments under the Physician Fee Schedule (PFS), and other Medicare Part B issues, effective on or after January 1, 2023. This calendar year (CY) 2023 PFS proposed rule made lots of provisions including expanding Medicare telehealth use even after the end of a public health emergency (PHE).

3. Expanding Medicare Telehealth Use after PHE For the calendar year 2023, CMS is proposing a number of policies related to Medicare telehealth services including making several services that are temporarily available as telehealth services for the PHE available through CY 2023 on a Category III basis, which will allow more time for collection of data that could support their eventual inclusion as permanent additions to the Medicare telehealth services list. CMS is proposing to extend the duration of time that services are temporarily included on the telehealth services list during the PHE, but are not included on a Category I, II, or III bases for a period of 151 days following the end of the PHE, in alignment with the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022 (CAA, 2022).

4. Increased Use of Medicare Telehealth During PHE To reduce COVID-19 exposure in health care environments, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) authorized waivers in March 2020 that expanded telehealth services for Medicare beneficiaries. These waivers allowed for telehealth in-home visits, services in urban areas, and audio-only interaction for some services. The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) report noted that in 2020, a greater proportion of beneficiaries in urban than rural areas used telehealth services. Among clinicians, behavioral health specialists had the highest increase in telehealth visits. In 2019, only 1 percent of visits to behavioral health specialists were telehealth; in 2020, the percentage jumped to 38.1 percent. By the end of 2020, telehealth visits to behavioral specialists were as common as in-person visits.

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