The Florida Medical Association is lobbying Gov. Ron DeSantis to issue an emergency order addressing payment disparities between telehealth and in-person services following the suspension of elective surgeries in the state, Florida Trend reports.
What you should know:
1. Mr. DeSantis cited telemedicine as a way for patients to continue seeing their clinician during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there's a large reimbursement disparity in Florida between in-person visits and telemedicine visits.
2. The agency is asking for uniformity around payments to allow clinicians to "comfortably provide telehealth services during the existence of the state of emergency," wrote Association President Ronald Giffler, MD, in a letter, Health News Florida reports.
3. UnitedHealthcare, one of Florida's largest insurers, also recently moved to increase telemedicine access, but declined to mention specifics around reimbursement.
4. Florida's state CFO Jimmy Patronis met with the association on telehealth recently, but neither the association nor the state commented on what took place at the meeting.