New Hampshire is making some progress towards more comprehensive telemedicine policies. In 2019 the Granite State’s Medicaid program added the patient’s home as an originating site! While the state’s Medicaid program offers limited coverage for telehealth, New Hampshire recently passed several pieces of legislation that expands coverage by private payers and access to out-of-state telehealth providers. The state’s telehealth parity law now requires private payers to reimburse for any telehealth services where the in-person service is also normally reimbursed. As of May 2016, New Hampshire joined the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact, which simplifies medical licensing across state lines.
New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu has signed a new law that, among other things, establishes telehealth reimbursement parity, permits phone-based care and expands telehealth use in substance abuse treatment.
New Hampshire has enacted a new law that greatly expands how care providers in the Granite State can use telehealth.
HB 1623, signed on July 21 by Governor Chris Sununu, amends the state’s definition of telemedicine to include new modalities, including audio-only phones, and requires Medicaid and private payers to reimburse for telehealth services on the same basis that it reimburses for in-person care.
It also ends restrictions on originating and distant sites for telehealth services, and expands the list of care providers able to use telehealth to encompass physicians, physician assistants, advanced practice nurses, midwives, psychologists, allied health professionals, dentists, mental health practitioners, community mental health providers employed by community mental health programs, alcohol and other drug use professionals, dietitians and professionals certified by the national behavior analyst certification board.
The law makes permanent several telehealth freedoms passed by emergency measures to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, including reimbursement parity and the ability for providers and patients to collaborate on care through a telephone. Several states have passed or are considering similar bills, and Congress and the federal government are under pressure to act as well.
“Expanding telemedicine has been critical during this time of crisis and proven to be a helpful and important tool for providers and patients to have for the long term,” Sununu said last month, after the bill had cleared both the House and Senate. “Expanding these services permanently will help streamline our health care system by breaking down burdensome regulations.”
It also addresses the federal government’s long-pending plan to create a special registration for care providers who want to prescribe scheduled drugs via telemedicine for SUD treatment.
Under the Ryan Haight Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act of 2008, certain healthcare providers were allowed to prescribe controlled substances for treatment as long as they’d first had an in-person examination with the patient. That law offered several instances in which the in-person requirement could be waived.
On March 16, the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) waived that requirement by invoking the public health emergency exception. That waiver is still in place, but will expire when the COVID-19 emergency is ended.
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