Expanding Remote Monitoring Access Act
The Expanding Remote Monitoring Access Act would temporarily broaden Medicare’s eligibility rules for remote monitoring services. It lowers the minimum data-collection requirement from 16 days per 30-day period to 2 days per 30-day period for remote monitoring payments, and it applies this change for two years after enactment. The bill emphasizes that remote monitoring can improve health outcomes and may reduce costs, citing VA data and CMS findings. It also requires a comprehensive report to Congress within one year, to consider differential reimbursement based on patient acuity and cost, appropriate supervision for non-clinical staff, service location, and estimated savings from earlier interventions. Definitions cover both remote physiologic monitoring and remote therapeutic monitoring.
Key Points
- 1Short title: Expanding Remote Monitoring Access Act.
- 2Minimum data collection for Medicare payments lowered to 2 days within a 30-day period, for a 2-year window from enactment (regardless of COVID-19 diagnosis status).
- 3Applies to remote monitoring services under Medicare Part B (Title XVIII); duration is explicitly time-limited to two years.
- 4A comprehensive report to Congress due within 1 year, including: (a) review of prior 2-day payment experience, (b) recommendations for acuity- and cost-based differential reimbursements, (c) analysis of appropriate supervision and place of service for non-clinical data review, and (d) estimated savings from fewer hospitalizations.
- 5Specifies broad consultation groups for the report, including HHS agencies, the VA, physicians and mid-level clinicians, hospitals and health systems, medical organizations, entities with remote monitoring expertise, beneficiary groups, the AMA CPT Editorial Panel, commercial payers, and other appropriate entities.