Today, the Partnership for Employer-Sponsored Coverage, an advocacy alliance representing businesses of all sizes, submitted a statement to the Senate Finance Committee for their hearing entitled “COVID-19 Health Care Flexibilities: Perspectives, Experiences, and Lessons Learned,” to highlight the need for permanent expansion of telehealth services to employees.

In the statement, P4ESC noted “…the time is ripe to modernize laws to increase access to telehealth services as patients, health providers, and coverage plan sponsors adapted to remote working and social distancing measures by utilizing this care delivery method and benefit offered by many employers.”

The full coalition statement is available HERE and below is an excerpt.

P4ESC supports: 1) treating telehealth services as an excepted benefit which would enable employers to offer this type of coverage to part-time and variable workforces, and other employees not enrolled in the employers’ medical plan; 2) reforming licensure requirements to enable services to be offered across state lines; 3) establishing a national set of standards for telemedicine services to address state-based requirements that have not kept pace with technology, practice site and remote working advances, including eliminating originating site and prior provider relationship requirements; and 4) clarifying that CARES Act telemedicine provisions are effective for plan years on or after January 1, 2019 (employer plan years vary between non-calendar and calendar year basis).