New Hampshire Medicaid to Cover Telehealth for Primary Care, Pediatrics
September 2019 ~
New Hampshire Medicaid will cover use of remote patient monitoring and telehealth for primary care and pediatric patient visits, effective 2020. Previously, telehealth was restricted to specialist visits.
The new law will allow practices that provide telemedicine to get reimbursed for those services for Medicaid patients and adds telemedicine as a required benefit to private insurance plans, significantly expanding its reach.
Senate Bill 258 creates definitions for remote patient monitoring and will allow primary care physicians and pediatricians rather than only specialists to bill Medicaid and private insurers for telemedicine services. The new law also expands the location of an “originating site” for telehealth to include “the patient’s home or another nonmedical environment such as a school-based health center, a university-based health center, or the patient’s workplace.”
Additionally, SB 258 mandates that virtual care for primary care, remote patient monitoring and substance abuse disorder treatment “shall only be covered in the event that the patient has already established care at an originating site via face-to-face in-person service.”
Supporters of the law hope it will increase access to healthcare in rural parts of the state. “Today is yet another opportunity to expand access to care that targets those in our rural areas and those with mobility challenges,” said Governor Sununu.
New Hampshire is the latest state to expand coverage for telehealth under Medicaid. State lawmakers say the bill is an effort to bring New Hampshire in line with other states that are expanding guidelines for connected health technology and enabling more providers to deliver care to patients outside the hospital, office or clinic.
Source(s): MHealthIntelligence; Concord Monitor; American Telemed Association; MobiHealth News; Associated Press; Becker’s Hospital Review;