Associate Jake Harper spoke with Xtelligent Healthcare Media about key pieces of telehealth legislation moving through Congress in 2022 and the factors that could potentially stop their passage, as well as the additional regulations needed to advance telehealth usage.
Last year, a number of bills were introduced in Congress in support of broadening access to telehealth and further expansion of its reach. Despite having mainly bipartisan support, one main factor pausing the passage of legislation could be cost, Jake explained.
“It really depends on how the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, decides to score the legislation and how it does that ultimately will have a bigger impact on representatives’ willingness to kind of get behind these rules,” said Jake. “The CBO has always taken the position that telehealth is going to be an additive service and that the utilization is going to be high. It may not bring down other costs, and so at the end of the day, it gets a very expensive score from CBO, which puts politicians in a difficult bind.”