January 7, 2025
Patient Resource: Can I Use Telehealth for Emergency Care?
There are many ways that telehealth can help with emergency medical care. Share this resource with patients so they can learn the ways that telehealth can support care during medical emergencies.
Topics Covered:
Click Here to learn more
January 7, 2025
Creating an Emergency Plan for Regular Telehealth Visits
Planning can go a long way to prepare you for an emergency situation during a telemedicine or telehealth appointment and set expectations with your patients.
With telehealth, you’re seeing patients outside of the safety and control of your office. An emergency situation may arise from a wide range of causes, including a mental health crisis, stroke/heart attack, overdose, etc.
Click Here to learn how to plan for an emergency situation during a telehealth appointment.
Click Here to Read Patient Safety and Emergency Management from the American Psychiatric Association
Federal legislation continues to expand and extend telehealth services. Click Here to read more
December 31, 2024
CMS 2025 Medicare Physician Fee Final Rule Summary
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a final rule that updates payment policies and Medicare payment rates for services provided by physicians and nonphysician practitioners (NPPs) that are paid under the PFS in CY 2025. These changes apply to services provided in 2025.
Click Here to Read Summary
Click Here to Read Billing for Telehealth
Click Here to Read Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule
December 31, 2024
Webinar Recording Available for Viewing: Addressing the Intersection of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) and Substance Use in Maternal Health Care
View the recorded webinar to learn about the National Strategy to Improve Maternal Mental Health Care, as well as the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and the Health and Human Services (HHS) Office on Women’s Health (OWH) initiatives that are integrating prevention and care for IPV, substance use, and maternal health.
This webinar featured speakers from HRSA’s Maternal and Child Health Bureaus and HHS OWH.
Click Here to View Recorded Webinar
December 31, 2024
FCCC Cervical Cancer Patient Engagement Toolkit
Download this new toolkit, developed by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and the Federal Cervical Cancer Collaborative (FCCC), the new toolkit, Improving Patient Engagement in Cervical Cancer Prevention (available in English and Spanish). The FCCC develops resources to advance equitable cervical cancer prevention, screening, and management in safety-net settings.
This toolkit helps providers improve equitable cervical cancer prevention, screening, and management. In this toolkit, “providers” means all people involved in cervical cancer care. This includes anyone who interacts with patients or supports patient care.
The toolkit has four sections:
Click Here to Learn More and Download the Toolkit
December 20, 2024
New Patient Engagement Toolkit from HRSA’s Federal Cervical Cancer Collaborative (FCCC)
In 2019, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported higher rates of cervical cancer for rural residents than urban. The Federal Cervical Cancer Collaborative (FCCC) is a multi-year federal partnership that bridges the federal priorities of cancer research and health care delivery in safety net settings of care. This resource is a companion to the Toolkit to Build Provider Capacity, publicly available on the FCCC resources page.
The toolkit supports efforts to increase patient and community engagement in prevention, screening, and management of a cancer that is highly treatable if found early.
Materials include social media posts, posters, a cervical screening follow-up card, and more and are available in both English and Spanish.
Click Here to Access the Toolkit
December 3, 2024
Research Recap: HIV Care
This research recap outlines different types of telehealth and how they can be used to support HIV treatment and prevention.
Click Here to Read the Research Recap
December 3, 2024
Calendar Year 2025 Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System and Ambulatory Surgical Center (ASC) Payment System Final Rule
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Calendar Year (CY) 2025 Hospital OPPS/ASC Payment System Final Rule (89 FR 93912) was published by the Office of the Federal Register on November 27, 2024.
Program information for outpatient quality reporting begins with cross-program changes for the Hospital Outpatient Quality Reporting Program, Rural Emergency Hospital Quality Reporting Program, and the Ambulatory Surgical Center Quality Reporting Program at Section XIV, pages 94367-94404; https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2024-11-27/pdf/2024-25521.pdf#page=456.
Individual program information can be found in the following sections of the final rule:
Inpatient facilities participating in the Hospital IQR Program are encouraged to review the hybrid measure changes, which further extend the voluntary reporting period under the Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) through the Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 payment determination.
Major provisions of the CY 2025 OPPS/ASC Payment System Final Rule are also discussed on the CMS website.
December 2, 2024
Become a Champion for the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline
The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) announced a new national public awareness campaign for the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline (1-833-TLC-MAMA) in conjunction with their latest Enhancing Maternal Health Initiative convening in Portland, Oregon.
As part of this new campaign, HHS announced the first six Maternal Mental Health Champions. They include:
Champions will raise awareness of the hotline at their thousands of locations across the nation, including Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
You can be a Hotline Champion by ordering and downloading 1-833-TLC-MAMA materials for free at any time to share with your friends, family, and network.
Click Here to see Maternal Mental Health Champion list
Click Here to Learn More about National Public Awareness Campaign
Click Here to Order and Download free TLC MAMA materials
November 26, 2024
Updates to the Definition of Rural Area
The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) published a final notice with updates to the criteria for defining rural areas. This update incorporates a new Road Ruggedness Scale from the Economic Research Service in the U.S. Department of Agriculture and a technical clarification about treatment of Census Bureau-defined urban areas in the definition given the removal of the term Urbanized Areas following the 2020 Census. HRSA’s Federal Office of Rural Health Policy uses this rural definition for determining rural health grant eligibility.
Click Here to view Road Ruggedness Scale
Click Here to see HRSA definition of Rural
