Home Health & Hospice Week

Two new bills would make providers’ lives easier if passed.

The Expanded Telehealth Access Act (H.R. 3875), sponsored by Reps. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.) and Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.), would make permanent the temporary waiver of restrictions on payment for telehealth delivered by physical therapists and PT assistants, occupational therapists, OT assistants, speech-language pathologists, and audiologists, the American Physical Therapy Association notes in a release.

“While the public health emergency is over, the need for telehealth services is not,” Sherrill says in a release.

And the Expanding Access to Palliative Care Act “would create a demonstration project within Medicare to allow palliative care to be covered concurrently with curative treatment,” notes a release from bill cosponsors Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), John Barrasso (R-WY), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), and Deb Fischer (R-NE).

“As a doctor, I have seen firsthand how important palliative care is for the comfort of patients and their families,” Sen. Barrasso says in the release. “Making sure patients have access to this care as soon as possible is critical to their quality of life.”