Group Recommends Policy Changes for Future Telehealth Optimization

The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) released a report that aims to support future telehealth optimization by detailing Medicare usage trends and providing recommendations for policymakers.

Located in Washington, DC, the BPC is a think tank focused on providing policy-based solutions to issues in various arenas, including healthcare, education, and infrastructure. 

In its new report focused on telehealth, the BPC detailed telehealth usage among Medicare beneficiaries following the withdrawal of virtual care barriers. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the only Medicare beneficiaries who used telehealth regularly were those residing in rural communities, the report states. However, once the pandemic hit in 2020, policy changes led to an increased number of Medicare patients using telehealth.

Prior to the pandemic, the proportion of Medicare beneficiaries using telehealth did not exceed 1 percent. In April 2020, over 32 percent of Medicare claims involved telehealth. Since then, researchers have gathered data on telehealth use, including demographics and preferred virtual care channels, and examined the impact of regulatory flexibilities. These include the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) providing reimbursement for audio-only telehealth services and allowing all beneficiaries to access telehealth services from their homes.

However, the question that remains is whether regulatory flexibilities should continue following the end of the public health emergency.

In April 2021, the BPC commenced research to gather information that may help resolve this question. The organization reviewed over 200 documents, analyzed Medicare fee-for-service telehealth use and conducted a national consumer survey on telehealth.

Following these efforts, the BPC presented findings and created a set of recommendations for potential policy changes. 

The organization found that the benefits of telehealth at the onset of the pandemic were evident, including expanded access to key services. For example, primary care made up 39 percent of telehealth visits during the first three quarters of 2021.

Based on its findings, the BPC created a set of recommendations for future telehealth policy, categorized under four sections: foundational, behavioral health, primary care, and other specialty services.

At the foundational level, the BPC believes that ensuring equitable access to care is critical, along with maintaining benefit transparency and consumer protections. The group also states that government authorities should work to strengthen fraud, waste, and abuse protections, incentivize provider engagement, enhance data quality for future policymaking, and optimize reimbursement efforts.

The behavioral health section includes recommendations for eliminating excessive in-person requirements and enabling the continued evaluation of prescriptions for controlled substances via telehealth.

In the primary care section, the BPC recommends continuing access to virtual primary care services for a two-year period following the end of the pandemic, enabling access to audio-only primary care assistance, and reviewing reimbursement for virtual primary care services to potentially test new models of payment. 

Like the BPC, various other organizations have recently made recommendations for future telehealth policies.

For example, in July, the American Hospital Association provided feedback to optimize the expansion of virtual mental health services. Its feedback included a recommendation to remove the initial in-person visit requirement for patients seeking telemental care.