For the first time, the Drug Enforcement Agency (“DEA”) is becoming directly involved in the telepharmacy space, an industry that the DEA has not previously regulated aside from the loose application of its existing regulations governing online pharmacies. Find out what this means for your business and how you can submit comments to the DEA directly in this post.

On November 2, 2021, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) finalized the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule for Calendar Year 2022 (the “Final 2022 MPFS” or the “Final Rule”). As we noted in our July article discussing the Proposed 2022 MPFS, CMS made some significant proposed changes to allow for audio-only telehealth in some limited circumstances. In addition, the agency also proposed to enable remote “direct supervision,” which would allow practitioners to supervise clinical staff billing incident to their services as long as they could be available by audio/video communication as necessary.

On November 2, 2021, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) released its Final Medicare Physician Fee Schedule for 2022 (the “Final 2022 MPFS”), revising certain payment policies for services provided to Medicare beneficiaries by healthcare practitioners. These policies take effect on January 1, 2022.

On July 13th, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) released its proposed Medicare Physician Fee Schedule for Calendar Year 2022 (the “2022 Proposed MPFS” or the “Proposed Rule”). In doing so, it recognized five new CPT codes for Remote Therapeutic Monitoring (“RTM”) of “non-physiologic” patient data such as “musculoskeletal system status, respiratory system status, therapy (medication) adherence, and therapy (medication) response” as well as pain. While this new code set is welcomed by advocates for virtual care, the 2022 Proposed MPFS that discusses RTM may raise just as many questions as it answers.