After a two year hiatus, Sen. Don Gaetz is back on the Senate Health Care Committee. And he has a lot to say about telemedicine.
While Gaetz said the Legislature needs to tread lightly so it doesn’t “put a straight jacket on health care,” he does support including in any telemedicine bill reimbursement provisions for doctors.
Reimbursement was one of several issues that bogged telemedicine down last session, when the House of Representative and the Senate failed to come to terms. The managed care industry supported the House’s approach–which didn’t address reimbursement–whereas doctors were more supportive of the Senate bill which did include reimbursement.
An early version of the Senate bill would have required reimbursement for both providers–the one consulting electronically and the one at the bedside. An early version would have required the so called “payment parity” for all lines of insurance, not just Medicaid.
“I think you have to provide some method of reimbursement in the bill,” Gaetz said, continuing, “I don’t know what the formula should be. I don’t know if it should be the same reimbursement as the physician standing at the bedside; I don’t know that. But i know you can’t expect people to give service and provide their skills and not have any reimbursement.”
Senate Health Care Committee Chairman Sen. Aaron Bean identified telehealth as one of his major priorities for the 2015 session. At press time, no telemedicine bill had been filed in the House or the Senate.
Gaetz is the only change in the membership of the Senate Health Care committee. He replaced Sen. Jeff Brandes.
A former health care executive says that telemedicine is occurring today without state laws outlining what can and cannot be done (though there are rules ). Nevertheless, he would like to see the state address the issue.
“We are in the Internet age. We simply have to work through these issues. It’s going to be rough, but if it turns into food fights and turf issues, I think we’ll miss the opportunity to seize a real value.”
