Telehealth

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,…

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs established a Temporary Emergency Reciprocity License (TERL) program to give emergency licenses to healthcare practitioners from states outside of New Jersey. The TERL program had been extended multiple times and was set to expire on January 11, 2022.

However, on January…

Rivkin Radler’s Michael Sirignano wrote an article, “An Insurance Fraud Year in Review,” that was published in the January 6 issue of the New York Law Journal. Among the many cases and settlements discussed were False Claims Act cases involving federal healthcare programs, healthcare fraud related to COVID-19 testing and telehealth services,…

On December 22, the Connecticut Department of Public Health (DPH) announced that it issued an Order temporarily suspending the requirements for state licensure, certification or registration of physicians, nurses, and certain behavioral health providers who are licensed elsewhere in the U.S. or the District of Columbia. The Order will expire on February 15, 2022, if…

Many of the changes to telehealth requirements during the COVID-19 pandemic on both the federal and state levels were intended to be temporary, as previously discussed here. Recently, a bipartisan group of lawmakers in Congress introduced the Telehealth Extension Act, which would, among other things, eliminate the requirement that patients live in a…