Monday Musings

The White House and Congressional leaders continue to negotiate over the bill that would expand funding for the Small Business Administration relief programs and provide more grants for health care providers and testing. According to the Wall Street Journal, the parties are close to a deal, and a Senate vote is expected tomorrow.

Healthcare Dive explains the precarious financial position in which many primary care practices find themselves as the great hunkering drags on.

Most providers have turned to telehealth in a bid to recoup patient volume, but reimbursement for virtual care is often lower than an in-office visit — if it’s reimbursed at all. A majority [of 2600 primary care providers surveyed by the Primary Care Collaborative (“PCC”)] are unsure whether they’ll be reimbursed for telehealth services, and full-scale use of virtual care is slight — 34% of practices rely mostly on video to conduct appointments, 15% on e-visits and 19% on a patient portal, compared to 48% of doctors conducting the majority of visits by phone, PCC found.

The article adds that “65% of clinicians in the PCC survey reporting they have patients who can’t use telehealth because they don’t have a computer or internet access. Congress allocated $200 million in CARES funding to the Federal Communications Commission ​to support providers’ telehealth infrastructure. FCC rolled out the first wave of grants on Friday.” Health plans can’t do much about the FCC issue, but they can provide temporary improvements on the telehealth payment issue.

Fierce Healthcare reports that the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services announced late Sunday new guidelines on resuming “non-essential” surgical procedures such as joint replacements. “The lack of revenue from such surgeries, in addition to low patient volume overall, has sparked a cash crisis for U.S. hospitals. Some major healthcare systems such as Tenet, Trinity Health and Detroit Medical Center have had to furlough workers due to the lack of cash.” The aforementioned Healthcare Dive article indicates that resumption of non-essential surgeries will aid medical practices too. But the ramp up understandably will be slow.