Colorado Lawmakers Join Effort to Make Telehealth Coverage Permanent

Some Colorado lawmakers have introduced a bill to continue payer coverage for telehealth services beyond the current coronavirus emergency.

Senate Bill 212, introduced this week, would prohibit insurers from imposing requirements or limitations on telehealth coverage and end the practice of requiring an in-person exam first.

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Specific to the state’s Medicaid program, the bill would mandate telehealth coverage for physical and occupational therapy, home health care, hospice care and pediatric behavioral health care; include coverage and payment parity for services at rural health clinics, federally qualified health centers and the Indian Health Service; and expand the definition of telehealth to include audio-only phones, faxes, messaging platform and e-mail.

The bill is the latest in a wave of actions – including state bills, health plan announcements and requests before Congress – aimed at indefinitely extending emergency actions issued during the COVID-19 crisis to expand telehealth coverage. Colorado’s Medical Services Board issued its declaration on March 20 to expand coverage for Health First Colorado and Child Health Plan Plus members.

Rhode Island lawmakers are debating a similar bill, which would mandate that telehealth services by in-network providers “be reimbursed at rates not lower than the same services would have been had they been delivered in-person,” and it would require those services to “be subject to the same health insurer policies as in-person services, including medical necessity determinations and appeal rights.” In addition, it calls for coverage of patients receiving virtual care “at any location,” and it expands the definition of telemedicine to include audio-only telephone conversations.

Telehealth advocates are hoping that the rapid and successful use of connected health platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic will sway federal and state lawmakers to continue their support for expanded coverage. Without that support, many restrictive telehealth and mHealth rules will come back into play once the national emergency is declared over and those emergency rules expire.

The Colorado bill was introduced by a bipartisan group of state senators and has the support of dozens of organizations, including the Colorado Medical Society, Colorado Community Health Network, Colorado Rural Health Centers and the University of Colorado.