Senate Finance Committee members Mark R. Warner (D-VA www.warner.senate.gov) and Johnny Isakson (R-GA) www.isakson.senate.gov have formed a bipartisan working group to explore solutions on how to improve outcomes for Medicare patients requiring chronic care.
The Senators on May 22, 2015 sent out a letter requesting input from healthcare stakeholders as they work to develop bipartisan legislative solutions. Submissions should be emailed to the Senate Finance Committee at chronic_care@finance.senate.gov by June 22, 2015.
The Senators seek input regarding:
- Improvements to Medicare Advantage for patients living with multiple chronic conditions
- Transformative policies to improve outcomes for patients either through modifications to the Medicare Shared Savings ACO Program or the piloted alternate payment models underway at CMS
- Reforms to Medicare’s current fee-for-service program to incentivize providers to coordinate care for patients
- The effective use, coordination, and costs for prescription drugs
- Ideas to effectively use or improve the use of telehealth and remote monitoring technology
- Strategies to increase chronic care coordination in rural and frontier areas
- Use of care coordination teams to provide the tools needed to meaningfully engage with healthcare providers
- Ways to more effectively utilize primary care providers to maximize healthcare outcomes
Senators Warner and Isakson have worked together on several bipartisan bills to improve access and the quality of medical care. Last January, the Senators introduced the “Medicare Home Infusion site of Care Act” (S. 274) to enable beneficiaries who need intravenous medication to receive their infusion treatments in their homes at a lower cost to Medicare.
In other legislative news, Representatives Glenn ‘GT’ Thompson from Pennsylvania http://thompson.house.gov and Charles B. Rangel from New York http://rangel.house.gov have introduced H.R 2516, the “Veterans E-Health and Telemedicine Support Act of 2015”.
The bipartisan legislation would allow VA health professionals, including contractors, to practice telemedicine across state borders if they are qualified. Currently, cumbersome location requirements can make it difficult for veterans especially those veterans struggling with mental health issues.
Under current law, the VA can only waive the state license requirement for treatment if both the physician and patient are located in a federally owned facility. The Act introduced would remove these barriers and allow the VA to provide treatment through physicians free of this restrictions. Veterans would be able to receive telemedicine treatment from anywhere including their home or community center.