Your prescribed dose of health law news
On Thursday, June 16, in the next installment of Rivkin Radler’s Healthcare Lunch & Learn series, firm partners Frank Izzo and Wendy Sheinberg will present a program on Addressing Patient Capacity Issues. The program will take place from 12:00 noon to 1:00 PM Eastern time via Zoom.
The topics to be covered will include:
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Regulators are now better armed to cite and fine health plans that are not complying with the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) of 2008. A recent report to Congress highlights the enforcement work to date and illustrates the extent to which many plans are noncompliant with the law. The result is that…
In a report published on March 31, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommended that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) begin to collect and analyze information about any effect telehealth has on the quality of care for Medicaid beneficiaries. CMS does not currently collect or analyze this information, nor does it have…
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services expanded Medicare coverage for telehealth nationwide, as discussed here. The $1.5 trillion omnibus spending bill signed into law by President Biden today extended the current telehealth accommodations for 151 days after the end of the federal public health emergency, which…
We don’t often cover brand-new proposed legislation on Rivkin Rounds, generally preferring to wait until it’s closer to becoming law. However, two bipartisan bills introduced in Congress last week are worthy of mention.
The Telehealth Extension and Evaluation Act would allow the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to extend certain pandemic-era flexibilities in Medicare…
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced on February 2 that the state will make available more than $100 million in funding over the next five years for 12 new Intensive Crisis Stabilization Centers across the state. The facilities are akin to urgent care centers for people who are experiencing an acute behavioral health crisis.
Intensive…
A study recently released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) found that the number of beneficiaries in the traditional Medicare program who used telehealth increased from 840,000 in 2019 to nearly 52.7 million in 2020. At the same time, the number of visits to doctors’ offices reimbursed under Part B decreased.…
The 2022 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule released on November 2 by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) added certain services to the Medicare telehealth services list through December 31, 2023. Last year, we wrote about temporary “Category 3” services that were added to the Medicare services list for the duration of…
On Thursday, November 18, in the next installment of Rivkin Radler’s Healthcare Compliance Lunch & Learn series, Rivkin Radler Partner Eric D. Fader will present an overview of changes in the provision of telehealth services, and federal and state regulation of them, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. New rules and waivers that are…
The proposed 2022 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule, released on July 13 by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), includes expanded reimbursement for behavioral health services delivered by telehealth, including reimbursing providers for audio-only telephone calls. The proposed expansion would allow Medicare beneficiaries with mental health or substance abuse disorders to receive diagnosis,…
