President Trump Expands Telehealth Benefits for Medicare Beneficiaries During COVID-19 Outbreak

 

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Today, The Trump Administration announced expanded Medicare telehealth coverage that will enable beneficiaries to receive a wider range of healthcare services from their doctors without having to travel to a healthcare facility. Beginning on March 6, 2020, Medicare—administered by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)—will temporarily pay clinicians to provide telehealth services for beneficiaries residing across the entire country.

Fact Sheet on this announcement

Frequently Asked Questions on this announcement

Additional telehealth guidance issued today:

CMS issued additional Medicaid guidance that is intended to assist states in understanding policy options for paying Medicaid providers that use telehealth technology to deliver services.

Medicaid State Plan Fee-for-Service Payments for Services Delivered Via Telehealth Guidance

The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a Notification of Enforcement Discretion for telehealth services during the COVID-19 national emergency. The notice describes how OCR will exercise its enforcement discretion to not impose penalties for noncompliance with the regulatory requirements under the HIPAA Rules against covered health care providers in connection with the good faith provision of telehealth during the COVID-19 nationwide public health emergency.

Notification of Enforcement Discretion for telehealth remote communications during the COVID-19 nationwide public health emergency

This guidance, and earlier CMS actions in response to the COVID-19 virus, are part of the ongoing White House Task Force efforts. To keep up with the important work the Task Force is doing in response to COVID-19 visit www.coronavirus.gov. For information specific to CMS, please visit the Current Emergencies Website.