Congresswoman Matsui Highlights Committee Work on Telehealth and Interoperability in 21st Century Cures
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, May 14, 2015
CONTACT: JULIE EDDY
(202) 225-7163
Congresswoman Matsui Highlights Committee Work on Telehealth and Interoperability in 21st Century Cures
During an Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee markup of 21st Century Cures legislation today, Congresswoman Doris Matsui (CA-06) discussed the commitment of the Energy and Commerce Telehealth Working Group to advancing telehealth in the Medicare program, and the work of the Committee to advance the goals of interoperability. Congresswoman Matsui said:
"This 21st Century Cures legislation has come together in an expedited fashion, but I am pleased with all that the Committee has been able to accomplish in a bipartisan manner in such a short period of time. I have some concerns with pieces of this legislation that I look forward to continuing to work through with the Chairman, Ranking Member, and my colleagues on the Committee. Innovation and cures are so essential to what we do in the health care space now, and in the future. I am glad we are working together to improve processes and take down barriers.
I would like to again thank Chairman Upton, Ranking Member Pallone, and Subcommittee Chairman Pitts for working with the bipartisan working group on telehealth. I would like to reiterate the working group's commitment to making real change to the way that Medicare currently reimburses telehealth services, or lack thereof.
I know that telehealth has been around for a while now and getting recognition of telehealth in the Medicare program, not just for rural areas, and not just for a limited set of services, has been a struggle for providers for a long time. We want to change that. However, if fixing this problem were simple, it would have been done years ago.
I want everyone to know that the telehealth section of the 21st Century Cures Amendment in the Nature of the Substitute that we are marking up today is designed to be an on-ramp to the ongoing effort of the working group. This is not the last you will hear from us and the provision that was included is not a replacement for our larger effort that will get to ways to expand Medicare reimbursement for telehealth.
I also look forward to continuing to work on the interoperability provision in this bill. What we have today is in draft form, and we still need to work to get it right. The ability of medical records and other health data systems to communicate with one another is integral to the practice of telehealth and to the optimal coordination of care. If systems don't talk, we'll never achieve the patient-centered care that we are striving for and we'll still end up with duplicate testing, lack of integration between physical and mental health and between specialty and primary care.
We have now held the majority of our health care providers accountable for moving to electronic health record systems. We need to make sure those systems work for our providers and patients. That providers have access to data for population health management and that patients have access to their own data to be fully engaged in their own care.
The provision in today's bill seeks to give the Office of the National Coordinator additional tools to set standards and metrics to hold software vendors accountable, but we need to make sure that we set this up in a way that works."
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