Thomas Ferrante Discusses Concerns Related to the Expansion of Telehealth Companies

Foley Partner Thomas (T.J.) Ferrante was quoted in a Time article, “Telehealth Companies Want Congress to Make Pandemic Expansion of Their Services Permanent,” about the concerns related to the expansion of telehealth companies and how it will affect their business and employees.

Congress recently directed the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) to conduct a study on the expansion of telehealth services to see how telehealth affects patient outcomes. MedPAC will aim to compare hospitalizations and emergency department visits from 2019, when there was less telehealth use, to those visits in 2022 and 2023.

“Collecting this data would likely require telehealth to stay around for a year or two beyond whenever the public health emergency ends. MedPAC’s report is due in June of 2023, but MedPAC favors a temporary extension for at least that time rather than permanent rule changes. If Congress continues temporary extensions until then, that could be ‘frustrating’ for telehealth companies and providers,” said Thomas. He continued, “That’s very hard for long-term planning, it’s very hard for an allocation of capital resources. And it’s hard to really message to your patients.”