Telehealth: the new 2020 taste sensation

With help from Arthur Allen (@arthurallen202) and Mohana Ravindranath (@ravindranize)

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Quick Fix

Hope everyone’s had a good weekend. Your correspondent was pleased to watch a staring contest between a baby and an (unrelated) elderly gent. The baby won, and you can, too, this week. Here’s the news:

— Telehealth: the new 2020 taste sensation: With Michael Bennet unveiling a new rural health plan relying on telehealth expansion, we’re seeing a trend in which Democratic presidential candidates are talking about telehealth.

— Facebook settlement: The settlement between the Federal Trade Commission and Facebook has health privacy advocates wondering whether they’ve been left behind.

— Tech notes: Plenty of updates from the health tech world to share.

But first, the jump:

eHealth tweet of the day: Tricia Rae Pendergrast @traependergrast “we complain about electronic health records but forget the healers at the temple of Asklepios had to CHISEL their records into STONE smh”

MONDAY: For the cinephiles out there: Any thoughts on “Once Upon A Time … In Hollywood?” Your correspondent saw it and found it half-confounding, half-eyeroll-provoking and half-enthralling. (Yes, three halves total — an excess perfect for Tarantino.) Share movie thoughts at [email protected]. Discuss movies socially at @arthurallen202, @dariustahir, @ravindranize, @POLITICOPro and @Morning_eHealth.

Driving the Day

TELEMEDICINE: THE NEW 2020 TASTE SENSATION? — Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bennet is the latest 2020 hopeful to promote telemedicine as a means for improving health outcomes.

Bennet’s telemedicine tout comes as part of his rural health care plan, which he shared last week. The plan promises a $40 billion investment in nationwide broadband, which could support virtual care and remote patient monitoring. The plan also proposes increasing the use of telemedicine for women and newborns, since his campaign says more than 10 percent of women must drive more than 100 miles for in-person prenatal care services.

The Colorado senator’s idea might sound familiar; Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden recently broadcast a similar pitch for telemedicine in his own rural health care plan; Biden specifically pledged to ensure that federal funds go to telemedicine programs, especially for mental health and specialized care.

Other Democratic candidates are also telemedicine-curious. To take one example, Sens. Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Cory Booker have introduced the MOMMIES Act (S. 1343 (116)), a bill intended to ease the maternal mortality crisis. The bill asks the Government Accountability Office to study whether Medicaid could use telemedicine to increase access to maternity care.

— Also in Congress: a bipartisan and bipartisan group of lawmakers have introduced legislation pushing HHS to test out more telehealth models, and to expand Medicare coverage if the telehealth models improve care while reducing spending or staying budget neutral. Reps. John Curtis (R-Utah) and Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) introduced the Telehealth Innovation and Improvement Act in the House; Sens. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.) introduced companion legislation. The measure could drive providers to find new ways to deliver care at a lower cost, Curtis said in a release.

— From the annals of research: The direct-to-consumer telemedicine firms are increasing convenience, but to what end, ask researchers in an online viewpoint published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Doctors for these firms — which address needs ranging from erectile dysfunction to contraception — might complete hundreds of e-visits a day, and it’s unclear whether these visits are really paying attention to all the possible problems a patient might present.

“As DTC telemedicine companies continue to expand, it will be imperative for physicians, other health care professionals, and policy makers to monitor these new treatment options to ensure convenience does not come at the expense of quality,” the authors conclude.

DOES THE FACEBOOK SETTLEMENT LEAVE HEALTH PRIVACY BEHIND? – The FTC’s $5 billion settlement with Facebook doesn’t do enough to protect patients who use the social media platform to connect to discuss common ailments,patient advocates tell our colleague Mohana.

The settlement, which has been the target of legislators’ scorn, requires Facebook to establish an internal privacy oversight board and to report on its use of health, financial, biometric and other sensitive data.

But it doesn’t addressa complaint filed with the agency alleging that Facebook failed to notify users that certain Facebook groups could divulge sensitive health data; it also doesn’t specify any protections for patients, privacy researcher Fred Trotter told POLITICO. (As we reported in February, Trotter and Andrea Downing, who co-moderates the BRCA Sisterhood Facebook Group, found that member lists for “closed” groups were accessible to outsiders, potentially putting members at risk for discrimination by employers and insurers, they said.)

Still, the settlement expands the amount of data Facebook must protect. It now has to ensure data including biometrics are kept safe — similar to what’s protected under HIPAA, says Lucia Savage, the former chief privacy officer at ONC and currently chief privacy and regulatory officer at Omada Health. That’s an advance, she argues.

— What next?: Lawmakers, including House Energy and Commerce chairFrank Pallone, say there’s a need for legislation that boosts FTC’s privacy oversight capacity, and that protects consumers’ health data when it’s shared outside the doctor’s office. (Pallonedemanded a briefing from Facebook executives after POLITICO’s report on the patient complaint in February; a staffer said executives complied with that request.)

TECH NOTES – Some other updates from the tech world:

— Fallout from antitrust announcement: Legal observers and tech company critics are intrigued by the federal government’s announcement that it’s going to pursue investigations against Silicon Valley giants for alleged antitrust violations. While critics and journalists have run down scads of potentially questionable behavior on the part of the big tech firms, it’s unclear whether that behavior actually equals a winning case on antitrust terms. For decades, the legal system has equated impermissible antitrust practices to rising prices, and most of the social media firms offer free services. Our Tech colleague Steven Overly delves in deeper.

— Florida docs annoyed by fees dispute: Florida’s new telemedicine world is annoying the Sunshine State’s doctors. The state’s Board of Medicine is going to write new rules allowing out-of-state doctors to practice — without paying a registration fee. That contrasts to roughly $700 in fees that in-state doctors pay. More details from News Service of Florida.

— Hospice providers not fond of EHR requirements: Hospice providers are warning that new CMS requirements to use certified EHRs as part of value-based pay schemes will prevent participation, Hospice News notes. Some unnamed large EHR vendors are not going to develop a certified product, they say.

— Verma continues social media campaign: CMS Administrator Seema Verma’s social media campaign targeting providers who don’t provide medical records in convenient, electronic format continues. In response to a tweet from former Office for Civil Rights official Deven McGraw showing a “gigantic” box of paper records delivered to McGraw’s startup office, Verma tweeted that “This should NEVER happen in 2019! Printing out health records shouldn’t be the default — especially in this quantity.”

“Nobody has time for that!” Verma said, before touting CMS’s interoperability efforts.

— Lobbying note: Cancer detection startup Guardant Health has hired Jenn Higgins as its VP of government affairs, our colleagues at Influence report.

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