On April 6^th, eHI, along with four dozen additional organizations, sent a letter to Congress and President Biden urging establishment of a long-term, federally funded broadband benefit program to provide low-income individuals enhanced financial support for broadband. This would build off of the Congressionally established FCC Emergency Broadband Benefit program. 

On April 6, eHI joined 16 organizations in sending a letter to Health & Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra. The letter urges the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to use emergency authority to waive in-person requirements from Medicare Diabetes Prevention Programs for the remainder of the COVID-19 public health emergency period. 

On March 2nd, the House Energy & Commerce Health Subcommittee held a hearing entitled The Future of Telehealth: How COVID-19 is Changing the Delivery of Virtual Care

Key takeaways from the hearing include:

• There was disagreement amongst Subcommittee Members on the approach and timeline for adopting permanent telehealth reimbursement policies.
  - Some Members, including Subcommittee Chair Anna Eshoo, believe now is the time to act to permanently remove Medicare telehealth reimbursement barriers.
  - Others, including Subcommittee Ranking Member Brett Guthrie and Full Committee Chair Frank Pallone, would like more data to ensure proper guardrails are in place to protect against fraud, abuse, and overutilization and ensure equity.
  - For the most part, witnesses agreed that they do not support arbitrary restrictions – like requiring a patient to be seen in-person prior to a telehealth visit – as fraud, abuse, or overutilization guardrails.
   
• In addition to reimbursement barriers, many witnesses highlighted licensure reform as a critical need in removing barriers to care for both providers and patients. Laws that do not allow clinicians to practice across state lines are major barriers in access to care.
   
• Over the COVID-19 public health emergency period, telehealth has been a lifeline for many providers and patients.
  - Telehealth has seen a decrease in missed visits and “no shows” because it tends to be more convenient for patients.
  - Telehealth has the potential to lower cost of care because it can provide more timely access to care.
   
• Other key themes from witnesses and Subcommittee Members were payment parity and reimbursement for audio-only services.

On Wednesday, February 17^th, the House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Communications & Technology held a virtual hearing entitled Connecting America: Broadband Solutions to Pandemic Problems. eHI strongly supports investment in broadband infrastructure in order to ensure all patients are able to access the care they need and know this is an area of interest to many members. 

On Monday, January 4^th, eHI submitted comments in response to a proposed rule from the Department of Health & Human Services and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services entitled Reducing Provider and Patient Burden by Improving Prior Authorization Processes, and Promoting Patients’ Electronic Access to Health Information. 

Download eHI's full comments below. 

Today, Congress passed year-end legislation to fund the government through the rest of Fiscal Year 2021 and provide additional COVID relief. In addition to these provisions, the legislation also included major health-related policies. You can find the full bill text here and key takeaways and section-by-section summaries below.
 

FY2021 provisions at a glance:

• Provides $23.395 billion in discretionary funding, $217 million above the FY 2020 enacted level
• Includes $730 million for the expansion of broadband service, including $250 million to the FCC to carry out the temporary telehealth pilot program authorized under the CARES Act
• $42.9 billion for NIH, an increase of $1.25 billion above the 2020 enacted level
• $7.9 billion for CDC, an increase of $125 million above the 2020 enacted level
• $6 billion for SAMHSA, an increase of $133 million above the 2020 enacted level

Find a full section-by-section summary here.
 

COVID relief provisions at a glance:

• Extends Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and restores the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation to all state and federal unemployment benefits at $300/week through March 14, 2021
• Provides a refundable $600 tax credit for individuals and $1,200 for married filing jointly. The credit phaseout begins at $75,000 of modified adjusted gross income ($112,500 for heads of household and $150,000 for married filing jointly) at a rate of $5 per $100 of additional income. Payments will be based on 2019 federal tax returns.
• Creates a second loan from the Paycheck Protection Program with a maximum amount of $2 million/loan
• Authorizes $15 billion for the SBA to make grants to shuttered venue operators (live entertainment, museums, etc.)
• Provides $25 billion to state and local entities for emergency rental assistance

Find a full section-by-section summary here.

Health care provisions at a glance:

• Provides a three-month delay of Medicare sequester payment reductions through March 31, 2021
• $20 billion for production of vaccines and therapeutics
• $8.75 billion for distribution of vaccines and $3 billion for the national stockpile
• Ends the practice of surprise medical billing, including air ambulances, and allows for independent arbitration and dispute resolution between the insurer and provider
• Extends Medicare, Medicaid, and public health programs for three years:
  
  • Community Health Centers
  • Teaching Health Centers
  • Diabetes Programs
  • Eliminates DSH reductions through 2023
• Permanently removes Medicare telehealth reimbursement restrictions for behavioral health services
  
  • Patient must have been seen in-person by provider furnishing telehealth services within the prior six months
• Requires Medicare Part D plans to incorporate real-time benefit tools that are capable of integrating with electronic prescribing and electronic health record systems of prescribing health care providers for the transmission of formulary and benefit information in real-time to such providers
  
  • Amends the definition of qualified electronic health record under the Public Health Service Act to say that a qualified EHR “includes, or is capable of including, a real-time benefit tool that conveys patient-specific real-time cost and coverage information with respect to prescription drugs that, with respect to any health information technology certified for electronic prescribing, the technology shall be capable of incorporating the information described…”
• Requires the HHS Secretary, through the Director of the CDC, to expand, modernize, improve, and sustain applicable public health data systems, including with respect to interoperability and improvement of such systems

Find a summary of all Medicare, Medicaid, and public health provisions here. 

Happy Birthday, 21^st Century Cures Act!

Yesterday, the 21^st Century Cures Act turned four years old. Unfortunately, like many 2020 birthday celebrations, we are not able to celebrate together in person this year, so I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the promise of the legislation, how far we’ve come in four years, and all the unfinished work ahead of us.

Cures was truly a triumph of the 21^st Century. Increasing partisan gridlock in Congress means that sweeping bipartisan legislation on any issue is rare, and even more rare if it is on health policy – yet Cures passed 94-5 in the Senate and 392-26 in the House. Members on both sides of the aisle came together around the goal of improving discovery, development, and delivery of cures to patients across the country. Cures brought crucial funding for the All of Us Research Program, the BRAIN Initiative, and the Cancer Moonshot. The law also included provisions that are top-of-mind for many eHI members – provisions to improve interoperability, stop information blocking, and update decades-old regulatory pathways for digital health technologies.

Despite the success and ongoing promise of Cures, our experiences with COVID-19 have highlighted that we still have much left to do to ensure a high-quality, effective, and equitable health care system for all. This is a goal to which eHI is dedicated through our policy and advocacy work. Over the summer, eHI’s COVID-19 Federal Policy Work Group crafted recommendations focused on how to fully leverage health IT and digital health to fight COVID-19 and future public health challenges (Building a Modern Health Care System).

Last week, eHealth Initiative (eHI) convened members virtually for our 2020 Government Affairs Retreat, where Members of Congress, virtual care experts, and Congressional staff spoke about pressing health policy issues. We also presented our 2021 Policy Principles, which, in conjunction with eHI’s expert Policy Steering Committee, will direct the organization’s policy and advocacy activities over the upcoming year. Some other highlights from the event:

• Virtual Care Panel Recording
• Member of Congress interviews
  
  • Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE)
  • Congressman Michael Burgess, MD (R-TX)
• Event materials and additional recordings

eHI strives to provide useful and unique educational opportunities and resources to our members. Legislation is key to get the wheels turning, but many of our members are on the ground every day doing the difficult work of transforming the health care system. We hope you join us for our upcoming educational webinars and events:

• Webinar: Expert Perspectives on Virtual Care on December 16^th
• Webinar: SDOH Impact on Equity and Diversity in Clinical Trials on January 12^th
• eHI Annual Meeting on January 26^th – 28^th

So, while we hope you all take a minute today to reflect on how far we’ve come in these past four years, we also hope you will join us in our continued work to actualize the promise of the law.

We applaud Congress for its recent steps to increase access to health care services via telehealth. While we seek permanent reforms to enable Medicare beneficiaries to continue to access services via telehealth once the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) ends, we write today to express our support for provisions, proposed by a bipartisan group of Senators, that would extend temporary telehealth flexibilities until the end of 2021 in an end-of-year package to fund the federal government.

On October 26^th, eHI joined 84 other organizations in sending a letter to the Acting Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) urging the agency to expedite and complete its efforts to implement a telemedicine special registration process enabling providers to safely prescribe controlled substances remotely. The agency was required to promulgate rulemaking on a telemedicine special registration process in the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act (P.L. 115-271), but has yet to do so nearly two years after enactment of the law.

On Monday, October 5^th, eHI submitted comments in response to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Calendar Year 2021 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule and Quality Payment Program proposed rule. eHI’s comments addressed proposals related to telehealth services, remote patient monitoring, Promoting Interoperability measures, and the Medicare Diabetes Prevention Program, among others.