Public health emergency will continue beyond July, Bloomberg reports

Heidi West, head of healthcare at Zoom, and Ron Emerson, global healthcare strategy lead for Zoom, speak during ATA2022 in Boston while Beth McLaughlin, product PR manager, joins by Zoom.

Photo: Susan Morse/HFN

The Department of Health and Human Services will extend the public health emergency beyond the current end date of July 15, Bloomberg has reported.

Whether this means another 90-day extension, which would end the PHE on October 13, or a shorter extension date is unknown, as HHS had made no official announcement.

HHS has promised to give providers 60 days' notice of the end of the PHE. This week – by some reports, yesterday – was the deadline for HHS to provide the 60 days' notice if the public health emergency was to end July 15.

Amid a rising number of cases and hospitalizations, the American Hospital Association, American Medical Association and at least a dozen other provider organizations asked HHS to keep the PHE designation until it is clear that the global pandemic has receded and the capabilities authorized under the PHE are no longer necessary. 

But the end of the PHE, whenever it happens to be, means telehealth waivers granted under the public health emergency – which have allowed for greater use and innovation – will expire 151 days later.

Telehealth providers are looking to Congress for a more permanent solution to continue the flexibilities allowed under the pandemic.

Many legislative efforts have been proposed to keep waivers and flexibilities alive that telehealth companies have used to build their business models.

Zoom, among the biggest telehealth providers, supports the Creating Opportunities Now for Necessary and Effective Care Technologies (CONNECT) for Health Act of 2021, one of the many proposed pieces of legislation aimed at picking up where the public health emergency leaves off.

Zoom sent a letter in August 2021 supporting this legislation. 

Lauren Belive, head of U.S. government relations for Zoom, said the legislation has a data-focused approach, which seeks to evaluate services to identify additional avenues to further improve patient outcomes.

The legislation would give the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid more power for regulatory decisions and would enable telehealth providers to retain the flexibilities they now have, according to Ron Emerson, global healthcare strategy lead for Zoom.

"If we fall off the cliff, organizations are looking at models to not be worried about reimbursement," Emerson said at ATA2022. "I'm optimistic. We've seen the benefits of it."

The CONNECT for Health Act of 2021 has not gone beyond the introduction stage, according to Congress.gov.

WHY THIS MATTERS

Innovations in virtual care, and the number of competitors, have blossomed during the pandemic.

At the March 14–18 HIMSS22 Global Conference alone, 240 telehealth providers had booths set up, according to Emerson. 

An American Medical Association 2021 Telehealth Survey Report shows that the telephone and Zoom are the two telehealth platforms physicians used the most, according to results released March 23.

To stay competitive, Zoom is working on workflow integration, versus having a parallel workflow, to move beyond communication silos, according to Heidi West, head of healthcare at Zoom. This means one contract with Zoom, instead of multiple support contracts, for both virtual care and for administrative communications, West said.

"Our vision is to be the communications engine," West said. "There's so much competition. It can't just be a doctor-patient engagement."

Even before the pandemic, Zoom – which has been in healthcare since 2016 – integrated with Epic on care.

THE LARGER TREND

Congress gave telehealth services a five-month extension beyond the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency in the Consolidated Appropriations Act. The telehealth provisions guarantee Medicare coverage of core flexibilities for 151 days after the end of the PHE.

The act extends Medicare coverage for telehealth services delivered in patients' homes, audio-only telehealth services and other flexibilities,  such as the definition of the originating site to mean anywhere the individual is located, according to JD Supra. Before the PHE, the originating site requirement generally restricted Medicare coverage to services delivered to patients at hospitals and other provider locations.

Congress also continued to include physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists and audiologists in the definition of distant site practitioners, as currently allowed by PHE waivers. And rural health centers and federally qualified health centers are now eligible as distant site practitioners for five months after the PHE ends.

Twitter: @SusanJMorse
Email the writer: susan.morse@himssmedia.com