Since the declaration of the public health emergency due to the COVID-19 epidemic, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) registered practitioners have been able to prescribe controlled substances, without a prior in-person visit with a patient, subject to certain conditions as outlined in our earlier blog post. Additionally, DEA waived the requirement…
The Controlled Substances Act, as amended by the Ryan Haight Act, generally prohibits prescribing controlled substances via telehealth without a prior in-person examination, subject to certain very limited exceptions. Those exceptions include prescriptions issued during a public health emergency. Thus, since the January 31, 2020 declaration of a public health…
On March 15, 2022, President Biden signed into law the $1.5 trillion Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022 (the “Omnibus Bill”). Included in the 2,700+ page Omnibus Bill is an extension of Medicare coverage of professional consultations, office visits, and office psychiatry services conducted via telemedicine for 151 days after the…
The COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (“PHE”) fundamentally changed the healthcare industry, forcing healthcare providers and patients onto their computers and phones to enable continuation of care when patients were mandated to stay home across the country. Prior to the COVID-19 PHE, approximately 12,5000 Medicare beneficiaries received telehealth services and only…
During the COVID-19 pandemic, decentralized clinical trials and remote patient monitoring and data acquisition became a necessity, accelerating the use of digital health technologies in clinical trials. Acknowledging that technological advances “have revolutionized the ability to remotely obtain and analyze clinically relevant information from individuals” and that “DHTs [ ]…
Telehealth’s exponential growth –in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic – has highlighted both its value in increasing access to care and the potential for misuse. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a report in September 2021 that found many state Medicaid…
As of April 5, 2021, health information technology companies and developers are required to comply with the information blocking provisions of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology’s (ONC) Information Blocking Final Regulation (“Final Rule”), implementing specific provisions…
As the COVID-19 pandemic progresses and the expanded use of telehealth has appeared to stabilize over the past year according to a July report from McKinsey & Company, Federal agencies have continued the recent trend of enforcement actions and audits of telehealth providers. On September 17, 2021, the U.S. Department…
The use of telehealth continues to grow rapidly across the U.S. Given legislative proposals and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services efforts to expand access to telehealth, we can only anticipate that remotely engaging with healthcare providers is here to stay. In fact, the National Center for Health Statistics…
