House Status:
Senate Status:
Senate Status:
Minutes for HB2206 - Committee on Health and Human Services
Short Title
Updating certain definitions, referral to specialty services and coordination of care provisions in the Kansas telemedicine act.
Minutes Content for Tue, Feb 9, 2021
Vicki Whitaker, Executive Director, Kansas Association of Osteopathic Medicine, provided neutral testimony to HB2206. While in support of the bill, Ms. Whitaker feels there are 2 areas that should be clarified in the bill. First, the inserting of "Kansas" in front of Board of Healing Arts to clarify that any physician practicing in Kansas should be licensed in Kansas. Second, there needs to be a broader fleshing out definition of Medical devices (Attachment 14).
Camille Snyder, President, Kansas Chapter American Physical Therapy Association (APTA), in neutral testimony,sited that her organization recognizes the opportunities telemedicine offers. Ms. Snyder is seeking an amendment that would include her organization within the providers in the bill. Physical therapists were utilizing telemedicine during the pandemic. Telemedicine does not change the organization's standard of professional care, it is merely a modality to execute treatments. APTA Kansas believes the best health care legislation and policies are adopted based on qualified providers delivering evidence based care that is safe and cost effective. APTA believes they should be included in this legislation (Attachment 15).
Susie Ternes, Executive Director, Kansas Speech-Language-Hearing Association (KSHA), stated that the organization is neutral on the bill while the organization is not recognized within the definition of a Healthcare Provider. Ms. Ternes would like an amendment to have KSHA included as a provider. During the pandemic, many children and adults who receive speech therapy have not been able to receive services because insurance would not reimburse the sessions delivered by telehealth. This has led to regression of speech and language abilities. During the pandemics, services provided to residents of long-term care facilities were approved by Medicare Part A, Part B and many Manage Care payers for teletherapy. Ms. Ternes urged that Speech-Language Pathologists and Audiologists should be included as providers within the bill (Attachment 16).
Travis Oiler, Executive Director, Kansas Chiropractic Association, stated that HB2206 would amend and repeal portions of the Kansas Telemedicine Act. The concern of his organization is the definition of "healthcare provider." The Act defined the provider types insurance must cover. Chiropractors do provide through telemedicine services, such as, therapeutic exercise/instruction, lifestyle modification instruction and nutritional services. It is the association's recommendation that all providers licensed by the Kansas Board of Healing Arts when providing services within their scope of practice be included in the bill (Attachment 17).
David Jordan, President and CEO, United Methodist Health Ministry Fund, provided testimony on the future of telehealth in Kansas. The Health Fund has conducted research on the impact Covid-19 telehealth policy changes on the utilization of telehealth services in Kansas. A list of the changes in policy was provided. To understand the impact of these changes, the Health Fund partnered with provider groups to survey members about their experiences with telehealth. The research was to understand how providers and consumers characterized their experiences. The benefits of telehealth were listed. Providers also were asked to elaborate on their perspectives on telehealth. The types of services being provided to patients were listed. Mr. Jordan noted some of the positive comments that were given. When asked about rate parity, 61.5% stated that it was the top policy priority among providers (Attachment 18).
Mr. Jordan provided a summary of the survey of health providers and information regarding payment parity (Attachment 19).
The conferees responded to questions from the committee.
Written only testimony was provided from the following:
Brian Mills, President, Kansas Occupational Therapy Association (Attachment 20)
Larrie Ann Brown on behalf of Teledoc Health (Attachment 21)
The hearing was closed.
The meeting was adjourned at 2:52 PM. The committee will meet on Thursday. 2/11/21 at 1:30 PM.
