Telehealth

On July 21, Amazon confirmed that it intends to acquire One Medical for approximately $3.9 billion in an all-cash transaction. One Medical is a membership-based, technology-driven, primary care and telehealth organization with about 767,000 members as of the end of March 2022. The deal strengthens Amazon’s growing connections to the healthcare sphere, as the e-commerce…

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On June 13, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued guidance to explain how audio-only telehealth can comply with HIPAA, while also emphasizing that this mode of telehealth services can expand healthcare access to individuals who may have limited internet and broadband capabilities.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020,…

The increased use of telehealth services is a trend that is expected to continue long after the COVID-19 pandemic ends. In keeping with this trend, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General (OIG) recently issued a favorable Advisory Opinion that allowed a federally qualified health center (FQHC) to provide free…

On April 20, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced criminal charges against 21 people across the country for COVID-19-related frauds. The defendants are accused of over $149 million in false billings to federal programs and thefts from federally funded pandemic assistance programs.

Some of the defendants, in California, New York and Maryland, allegedly obtained…

On April 12, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra extended the COVID-19 public health emergency for another 90 days. The PHE had been scheduled to expire on April 16.

The PHE originally went into effect in January 2020, at the onset of the pandemic. It provides important flexibilities for healthcare providers,…

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…

Eric Fader was featured on the LexBlog podcast, “This Week in Legal Blogging,” where he discussed his blog, Rivkin Rounds. The LexBlog article, “Eric Fader on his push to launch Rivkin Rounds and how it has paid off for him and his firm,” gives a brief overview of the topics the podcast goes into,…