Telehealth Enforcement Actions

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“It behooves all healthcare compliance professionals to be aware of the fraud, waste and abuse risks associated with telehealth services. This mode of delivery holds great promise. For it to fulfill that promise, non-compliance needs to be rooted out and corrected.”

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Is telehealth getting a new lease on life?

6 PHE-Related Waivers

Through 2019, telehealth was mainly for rural patients living far from healthcare providers. Then came COVID and the Public Health Emergency (PHE) declaration from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Since 2020, a series of rolling 90-day waivers opened telehealth to everyone, temporarily. 

Thanks to a recent surge in COVID cases, the current PHE extends to October 2022. When it ends, so does CMS’s authority to continue telehealth’s expended capabilities (unless there’s a further extension). That’s why Congress stepped in. The Consolidated Appropriations Act, which became law March 15, extends telehealth’s lifespan by five months (151 days, to be specific) after the PHE expires. (Related: Six key steps to reduce the impact of telehealth audits

That means telehealth is alive and well at least through year’s end. So are many of the PHE-related coverage flexibilities. Here are some of the highlights: 

  • Telehealth from anywhere Before the PHE, Medicare covered only services delivered to patients at hospitals and other provider facilities. The Act redefines “originating site” to mean “any site in the United States at which the eligible telehealth individual is located at the time the service is furnished.” This could be patients’ homes, their cars – anywhere with phone or Wi-Fi connectivity. 
  • More practitioners In addition to physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and other specialized providers, occupational and physical therapists’, speech language pathologists’ and audiologists’ services will be covered. 
  • Payment for audio-only services will continue for 151 days after the PHE ends. 
  • Relaxed in-person mental health services requirement The waivers ensure that the requirement that mental health patients have in-person visits of the first telehealth visit and every 12 months afterwards won’t take effect until the 152nd day after the PHE ends. 
  • Reinstated first-dollar coverage Until the end of 2021, telehealth services to High Deductible Health Plan and Health Savings Account patients were not subject to plan deductibles. The new law reinstated this relief through December 31 of this year. 
  • More data transparency The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission is required to analyze telehealth utilization, expenditures, payment policies, and implications on access to and quality of patient care. Starting July 1, the HHS Secretary must publicly post quarterly telehealth utilization data. 

For more lasting, but not permanent, relief, the bipartisan Telehealth Extension and Evaluation Act, which would extend the telehealth waivers for two years, is inching its way through Congress. 

If all the flux and uncertainty at the federal level weren’t enough, there’s also the state level. As I posted almost a year ago, the states have their own telehealth coverage, reimbursement, and privacy regulations. For now, patients and providers can continue on through at least the end of 2022 with access to telehealth. Beyond that, healthcare organizations are working hard to future proof their approach to telehealth. Stay tuned! 

Read how one health system created a scalable repeatable process to address regulatory changes during the PHE. The hospital system is now fully prepared to revert those changes or update them to the new requirements. 

Get a 15-minute strategic overview of YouCompli

  

Telehealth expansion: Interstate licensure compacts benefit patients 

YouCompli Woman reviewing interstate licensure compacts for telehealth

Telehealth services and models have expanded rapidly during the pandemic. Healthcare employee burnout, the Great Resignation, and other factors are expected to further accelerate telehealth growth.  

Telehealth expansion has led to significant growth in the use of interstate licensure compacts. As more healthcare professionals obtain licensure under compacts, compliance officers need to be aware of interstate licensure requirements – and their effects on patient care. 

Increasing use of interstate licensure compacts 

The National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) recently published its annual report on interstate licensure. It noted 43 states and territories have enacted licensure compacts for nurses, physicians, physical therapists, emergency medical technicians, psychologists, speech therapists/audiologists, occupational therapists, and counselors. 

The Nurse Licensure Compact (NLC) is an interstate agreement allowing nurses to practice in multiple states with one multistate license issued from their home state. The compact enables nurses to provide nursing services to patients located in other NLC states via telehealth without obtaining additional licenses. The NCSBN says this approach allows for greater nurse mobility, public protection, and access to care.  

In addition, use of the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact (IMLC) grew by 47% in the past two years. The IMLC Commission noted “more than 8,000 licenses were issued through the compact from March 2020 to March 2021.” This is compared with nearly 4,000 licenses issued during the previous 12-month period.  

With more healthcare professionals practicing across state lines, patients have more choices. And healthcare compliance officers have processes and procedures to update.  

Interstate licensure compacts benefit patients 

For patients, one benefit of licensure compacts includes licensing boards being able to ensure that physicians maintain professional integrity and medical standards – regardless of where they practice. As more healthcare professionals obtain licensure under compacts, patients gain greater flexibility in making care decisions.  

For example, rural patients can participate in a telehealth visit with a specialist or provider at home. This saves patients the time and expense of driving long distances to see the same provider in a facility setting.   

Another positive is the increased use of remote monitoring devices, such as glucose monitors, blood pressure monitors, and heart monitors. Patients can receive state-of-the-art monitoring remotely, instead of as a hospital inpatient. In turn, healthcare costs decrease and patient compliance increases.  

A significant patient benefit with expanded telehealth is the inclusion of mental health services. Under the provisions of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, services for the diagnosis, evaluation, or treatment of mental health disorders may continue as telehealth services. Per the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services (CMS), the previous restrictions limiting telehealth mental health services to patients residing in rural areas no longer apply.  

Compliance considerations 

Compliance officers need to help their organizations keep up as healthcare delivery models change. Organizations will need to update everything from billing codes to human resources policies and procedures to information technology (IT) practices.  

For example, compliance officers should partner with Human Resources to make sure out-of-state licensed professionals have been educated in facility policies and procedures. They also need to ensure that professionals working under licensure compacts understand the nuances of the rules and laws in the state they are working. 

Compliance officers also need to work with the IT department to ensure that remote devices have been securely connected to the network. They also need to collaborate with the risk department on making sure proper medical professional liability insurance coverage has been obtained for these licensed professionals.  

Compliance officers should work with Revenue Cycle on two crucial issues:  

  • Ensuring that the organization stays abreast of the changes to the CMS list of services payable under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule when furnished via telehealth. 
  • Staying current on telehealth visit coverages and coding modifiers to decrease denials of patient charges.  

As your team manages your response to continuing regulatory changes, having a system to keep up with the moving parts can help. YouCompli can support your regulatory change management process. It provides regulatory analysis to help you know what changes are coming and decide whether they affect your institution. It also provides requirements, tasks, and deadlines, in clear business English, making it easier for you to manage changes and verify that you’ve taken the proper steps. 

Denise Atwood, RN, JD, CPHRM 
District Medical Group (DMG), Inc., Chief Risk Officer and Denise Atwood, PLLC 

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article or blog are the author’s and do not represent the opinions of DMG.  


Denise Atwood, RN, JD, CPHRM has over 30 years of healthcare experience in compliance, risk management, quality, and clinical areas. She is also a published author and educator on risk, compliance, medical-legal and ethics issues. She is currently the Chief Risk Officer and Associate General Counsel at a nonprofit, multispecialty provider group in Phoenix, Arizona and Vice President of the company’s self-insurance captive.  


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Health organizations tackle regulatory change at Mass. conference

The Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association recently convened its Healthcare Legal Compliance Forum to update members on key areas of regulatory change, compliance and enforcement in this late COVID era. 

Current and former law enforcement officials, healthcare compliance practitioners, attorneys and consultants gave a broad view of the priorities, challenges and opportunities facing the Compliance profession.  

Federal and State Enforcement Update 

Featured speakers: Toby R. Unger, Chief of Medicaid Fraud Division, Office of the Massachusetts Attorney General; and Patrick Callahan, Healthcare Fraud Unit, US Attorney’s Office. Moderated by David Schumacher, Partner, Hooper, Lundy & Bookman. 

Unger and Callahan noted that the pandemic shifted the makeup of their case load. It reduced the rate of whistleblower and other fraud complaints, and for Unger at least, abuse cases increased.  

They talked about how health organizations can effectively partner with law enforcement. They generally see the best outcomes when Compliance and Legal teams bring issues to them or work quickly with them to find data and resolve issues. 

And they shared their take on effective Compliance functions. A good Compliance department doesn’t need to be huge with a lot of people and formal processes,” Callahan said. “A good department is one that has a real effect when they ask leadership to make a change. They have a voice that gets leadership’s attention, and they can have questionable practices stopped during an investigation. When they ask to press pause, they are listened to.”  

Read More: State and Federal enforcement agencies anticipating more complex investigations as COVID-era practices emerge

Compliance Officer Roundtable  

Featured speakers:  Craig Bennett, Vice President and Chief Compliance Officer, Boston Medical Center; Rachel Lerner, Esq., General Counsel & Chief Compliance Officer, Director, Center for the Prevention of Elder Abuse and Neglect, Hebrew SeniorLife; Maria Palumbo, Chief Compliance & Privacy Officer, Lawrence General Hospital. Moderated by Larry Vernaglia. 

Bennett, Lerner, and Palumbo shared their experience over nearly two years of pandemic-influenced healthcare compliance. They talked about how they collaborated to manage regulatory change and reinforce their culture of compliance. They also talked about the regulatory changes they are planning for in 2022.  

Lerner said she spends a lot of time looking at regulatory changes to understand their implications to her organization. “It can take us a long time to decide ‘does this apply to us?’ And then figure out what to do with it. Then we have to figure out what to do with that information in bits and pieces. It is certainly a complex, ever-changing universe on that front.” She spoke of Compliance’s key role in knitting together all that information to help the organization act correctly and then integrate it into daily processes. 

Read More: Compliance officers reflect on COVID pivots and preparing for the end of the public health emergency

Telehealth in the Pandemic and Beyond  

Featured speakers: Marcus Hughes, Associate General Counsel, UMass Memorial Health; Meg Cosgrove, Associate General Counsel, Beth Israel Lahey Health. And moderated by Jeremy Sherer, Healthcare Attorney, Hooper, Lundy, & Bookman. 

Hughes and Cosgrove discussed interstate telehealth compliance issues. They talked about the hard adjustments providers have to make as demand for telehealth surges and scrutiny of out-of-state practice increases. They shared ways they are preparing for the regulatory changes that will come with the end of the public health emergency.  

As waivers expire, Compliance officers have to increase their efforts at making sure providers understand licensing requirements and the risk of non-compliance. 

Hughes noted that there is a common belief that there is a national framework for remote care, but actually there isn’t. “Now that we’re in the late stage of the pandemic, we have to educate our staff to dispel some of the myths that are out there. And we have to make sure they know that the COIVD waivers are coming to an end.”  

Read More: Healthcare GCs look at telehealth compliance in the Pandemic and beyond

COVID-19 Hot Compliance Topics  

Featured speaker: Martie Ross, Office Managing Principal, PYA  

Ross covered federal vaccine mandates. unwinding regulatory flexibilities, and provider relief fund audits and enforcement. Her detailed slides are available from PYA here. They provide great insight for Compliance practitioners. 

Ross recommends that you review and track changes to internal policies and practices and establish a process to completely unwind. “As a compliance officer, it’s time to back through your compliance documentation over the past two years and think about how you’re going to unwind from these changes,” she said. 

Read More: Compliance expert Martie Ross explains critical regulatory change management issues facing healthcare in 2022

YouCompli sponsored MHA’s 2021 Healthcare Legal Compliance Forum. We provide a complete solution to help healthcare compliance organizations manage regulatory change. Find out more about YouCompli.  

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Telehealth policies and programs center on patient care

Patients and providers alike flocked to telehealth in 2020. Before the COVID-19 pandemic began, fewer than one percent of Medicare primary care visits (PCV) were conducted via telehealth. By April 2020 that number had risen to 43 percent.  (See the data.)  

This spike was in response to fear of spreading the virus, of course. But it was only possible because healthcare organizations worked so hard to adjust to meet the ongoing patient needs. The federal government helped by announcing a public health emergency that eased key rules.  

RelatedDiffering state regulations make telehealth compliance more complex.  

Compliance professionals worked across their organizations to make sure that everyone understood and complied with documentation, coding and confidentiality requirements. For example, compliance professionals collaborated with clinical teams to ensure telehealth workflows were HIPAA compliant.  And, given the potential for abuse and scrutiny, providers who bill Medicare/CMS took extra care to document visits properly. 

Telehealth has been hugely popular with patients and has led to better visit compliance, particularly for uninsured and underinsured populations. Telehealth has improved patient care by allowing convenient appointments from the comfort of home via a smartphone, tablet, or computer. Another benefit is that telehealth has the potential to expand health care access to underserved populations by eliminating traditional barriers to care such as transportation needs, distance from specialty providers, and approved time off from work. These visits were essential for patients with limited mobility. And of course, there’s the most immediate and urgent benefit of telehealth:  reducing the spread of COVID-19 by limiting person-to person-contact.  

The work for the Compliance team and colleagues across the organization was significant. They had to determine how to maintain confidentiality, obtain consent, and determine proper billing codes. Despite the enormity of this task, the effort seems to be worth it. Patients are reporting that telehealth helps them take better care of themselves. According to Medical Economics:

  • 93% of patients would use telehealth to manage prescriptions, and  
  • 91% shared telehealth would help them stick to appointments, manage prescriptions and refills, and follow wellness recommendations. 

Providers seem to feel that they have worked through a lot of the challenges of telehealth compliance, especially when internet connections are stable. Nicole Craig is a Family Nurse Practitioner at Children’s Rehabilitative Services in Phoenix. She says compliance guidance helps providers “know what has to be documented in the chart to protect ourselves from things such as improper billing and coding.” And, “in 2021 the billing is now different. Getting help from Compliance allows providers to bill time-based care. We have to understand the billing rules and compliance factors in order to follow them, especially during telehealth visits.” 

For most PCVs, telehealth proved to be an efficient way to provide care. This method limited in-person visits to those instances where the patient needed a hands-on physical assessment or diagnostic testing.  

Isabella Porter, JD, director of Compliance at District Medical Group, Inc., is confident that 2020 created a rebirth of telehealth. She also sees a new appreciation of this method of care delivery which healthcare will not abandon once the pandemic is deemed “over.” And she knows that her team will be a big part of her organization’s success. “I do believe that in the context of telemedicine during COVID-19, our Compliance department’s assistance with telehealth workflows lead to overall better patient outcomes during the pandemic,” she said. 

It’s a good thing. While concern about the coronavirus will recede, providers and patients alike will want to continue some telehealth visits. Healthcare leaders will work collaboratively to ensure their organizations can continue to offer this important option.  

Keep on top of regulations affecting telehealth and make sure those regulations are translated into policies and procedures that affect patient care. YouCompli customers have access to notifications about changes to regulations, resources to inform policy and procedure updates, and tools to track compliance. Contact us today to learn more.  


Denise Atwood, RN, JD, CPHRM has over 30 years of healthcare experience in compliance, risk management, quality, and clinical areas. She is also a published author and educator on risk, compliance, medical-legal and ethics issues. She is currently the Chief Risk Officer and Associate General Counsel at a nonprofit, multispecialty provider group in Phoenix, Arizona and Vice President of the company’s self-insurance captive.  


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Denise Atwood, RN, JD, CPHRM 
District Medical Group (DMG), Inc., Chief Risk Officer and Denise Atwood, PLLC 
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article or blog are the author’s and do not represent the opinions of DMG.