KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Seeing a doctor via telehealth could potentially be unavailable to Kansas residents as of March 31.
In 2020, the federal government, states and private payers lifted previous restrictions on telehealth. This enabled safe access to health care during the course of the pandemic.
“Telehealth is that bridge to patient access that we didn’t have before and now across the region, we can provide that bridge," University of Kansas Health System vice president of ambulatory medicine, Dr. Keith Sale, said Thursday.
Before the public health emergency went into effect, doctors were limited on how they could see a patient.
“When the Public Health Emergency went in place, they took away some barriers. One of them was a barrier of where a patient could actually be: a patient had to be in a medical facility, so a patient would have to travel somewhere. If a patient stayed at home, you did not get reimbursed anything. The doctor essentially could see you at home, but the doctor wouldn’t get paid for that visit," Jason Grundstrom, executive director of KU Health System's Continuum of Care, said.
The Kansas public health emergency is set to expire on March 31.
Prior to it taking effect, the University of Kansas Health System was seeing about 100 telehealth patients per day. Now, it's averaging more than 1,000.
“If I don’t get reimbursed for 99 percent of those, it’s going to be hard for a physician to continue to be a physician to stay in business because they’re not getting paid for these services," Grundstrom said.
Doctors are hopeful the order receives a 90-day extension, during which legislators could have time to consider laws that would reimburse doctors the same amount for in-person and telehealth visits.
