Congress must take actions now to ensure that Medicare patients continue to access telehealth post-pandemic.

AMA Trustee Jack Resneck, MD said in a statement for the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee’s health subcommittee that efforts should continue to build capacity and encourage access to care focused on where the patient is located, as it’s clinically efficient and cost-effective. We need to ensure physicians and other healthcare providers get tools to optimize care delivery.

Dr. Resneck, reiterated the need for Congress to modernize the Social Security Act (SSA), especially section 1834(m) owing to the need to keep pace with healthcare’s digital future.

He also said that these restrictions might have been suitable given the limited technologies available when first instituted in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. Two-way audiovisual technology is presently available widely and comparatively inexpensive.

The bipartisan Telehealth Modernization Act introduced in the House and Senate is supported by the AMA. The bills will make permanent emergency measures, temporarily waving restrictive regulations and expand access to telehealth for Medicare beneficiaries.

When physician offices closed doors in the initial period of COVID-19 pandemic a year ago, the government waived the SSA restrictions that allowed Medicare to pay for beneficiaries’ telehealth services when care was given via two-way audiovisual technology in a rural area at an eligible site.

The restrictions implied that a patient living in an eligible rural location and then travel to an eligible originating site for telehealth services but in limited select cases in which Congress authorizes telehealth services in an individual home.

Restrictions were lifted during the pandemic so more than 10.1 million patients received a Medicare telehealth service from mid-March through early-July 2020.

Of all the primary care visits for Medicare beneficiaries, telehealth visits accounted for 43.5% as per the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).