Upton Seeks Increased Use Of Telemedicine During Coronavirus Response

medical54-50
medical54-50

Congressman Fred Upton is asking the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services to update its policies to better respond to the COVID 19 threat. He tells us a supplemental budget bill passed by the House last week to respond to coronavirus included language allowing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to waive certain Medicare tele-medicine restrictions during the public health response. However, Medicaid was not included in the bill. Therefore, Upton and Congressman Joe Kennedy wrote to CMS on Friday asking that Medicaid be added. They haven’t heard back.

“We’re going to be introducing legislation to require CMS to do that,” Upton said. “Not only is it going to help the Medicaid folks, but it will also protect our hospital attendees, whether it be doctors, nurses or other first responders that might be unnecessarily exposed to this.”

Upton says under the plan, patients could be advised by a doctor without having to go out in public. He expects having the change apply to Medicaid recipients will pass the House like its Medicare counterpart last week. He says local health officials have told him allowing for remote consultations will be beneficial.