Arizona's
Senate has passed a bill designed to expand access to telemedicine and
telehealth in a state with a growing shortage of primary care providers. The
bill now heads to the House.
March
01, 2019 - Arizona’s Senate has unanimously passed a bill that would
expand telemedicine coverage in a state with a growing shortage of primary care
physicians.
The
Senate this week passed SB 1089, which adds asynchronous
(store-and-forward) telehealth and remote patient monitoring to the state’s
connected care guidelines and boosts payer coverage for those services. It now
heads to the House, where several Representatives have already expressed
support for the bill.
“Telemedicine
could have a wider role in providing quality health care to patients quickly –
especially in areas where a physician with the appropriate expertise is not
available,” State Rep. Nancy Barto, chair of the House Health and Human
Services Committee, told State of Reform.
“There are critical physician shortages here in Arizona and nationwide.
Telemedicine is a natural solution and can be an extremely useful tool.”
Barto’s
committee recently held a joint public hearing with
its Senate counterpart to discuss how connected health technologies could
improve outcomes and expand access to care in a state where, according to a recent report, only about
42 percent of residents’ primary care needs are met by an available PCP.
According
to that report, prepared by the University of Arizona Center for Rural Health,
Arizona ranks near the bottom of the US in total active PCPs, with about 80 per
every 100,000 residents (the US average is about 92), yet is the fourth fastest
growing state – with Phoenix the fastest growing city – in the country.
Arizona
is following a path being taken by several states in redefining telehealth and
telemedicine to cover more services, instead of limiting the platform to
specific specialties or communities.
Current
guidelines restrict telemedicine in the state to trauma, burns, cardiology,
infectious diseases, mental health disorders, neurologic diseases (including
strokes), dermatology, pulmonology, pain medicine and substance abuse, with
urology added to the list in 2020. The new bill simply redefines telemedicine
as “the interactive use of audio, video or other electronic media … for the
purpose of diagnosis, consultation and treatment.”
It
would also prevent payers from restricting virtual care coverage based on the
type of service offered or a patient’s location in an urban or rural area.
Many
states are moving to include asynchronous and store-and-forward platforms in
their laws to enable healthcare providers to expand their connected care
services, especially in direct-to-consumer telehealth and home-based care
management. In addition, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)
has included some reimbursement for those models of care in its 2019 Physician
Fee Schedule.
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