A new notion for telemedicine funding?
With help from David Pittman and Darius Tahir
CURES COULD NUDGE TELEMEDICINE PAYMENT, LAWMAKER THINKS: A small and often overlooked provision of the 21st Century Cures Act could help spur more government coverage of telemedicine, one lawmaker believes. Rep. Tim Murphy’s mental health reform bill, which was part of Cures, authorizes $9 million in grants for tele-mental health care. While small, it could provide enough data collection on a federal level that CBO will start to pay attention to the potential savings of virtual mental health care, Murphy said at an American Telemedicine Association conference on Tuesday. “If we indeed use this as a way to deal with Medicare and Medicaid population, we can lower costs,” he said. “If we really want to transform health care costs, we have to transform health care.”