Key House Committee Passes Warner’s Health Care Bills to Lower Costs and Expand Access to Care

WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA) today welcomed House Ways and Means Committee’s unanimous passage of his Rural Patient Monitoring (RPM) Access Act and his Improving Seniors’ Timely Access to Care Act . “I am grateful to my colleagues on the House Ways and Means committee who stood up for patients on Medicare, especially those who live in rural and underserved communities,” said Sen. Warner . “These bills will expand access and lower costs. My RPM Access Act ensures seniors can regularly receive the medical consultations they need by expanding remote care options. My Improving Seniors’ Timely Access to Care Act modernizes the prior authorization process, cuts through red tape, and streamlines approvals so that providers can focus on their patients.” The Rural Patient Monitoring (RPM) Access Act ensures Medicare patients in rural and underserved communities have access to remote physiologic monitoring services, which lower costs and improve access to care by using technology to collect and transmit patient health data to healthcare providers. Specifically, the RPM Access Act would ensure high-quality remote physiological monitoring services are established and maintained for Medicare beneficiaries in rural and underserved geographies; allow rural areas to provide RPM services at the national average rate; and decrease patients’ total monthly cost. Under the RPM Access Act: RPM providers must be capable of responding to data anomalies detected by the monitoring service; RPM providers must be capable of promptly transmitting captured vitals and treatment management notes to electronic health record of the supervising provider; and The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services may require providers of RPM to report data to the Secretary of Health and Human Services in order to facilitate the evaluation of cost savings generated to the Medicare program through the proliferation of remote physiologic monitoring services. The Improving Seniors’ Timely Access to Care Act is bipartisan, zero-cost legislation to improve access to care for seniors enrolled in Medicare Advantage (MA) plans. The bill focuses on streamlining the often cumbersome and time-consuming prior authorization process, ultimately allowing healthcare providers to spend more time on patient care rather than administrative burdens. The Improving Seniors’ Timely Access to Care Act would: Establish an electronic prior authorization process for Medicare Advantage plans, including a standardization for transactions and clinical attachments; Increase transparency around Medicare Advantage prior authorization requirements and their use; Clarify HHS’ authority to establish timeframes for e-prior authorization requests, including expedited determinations, real-time decisions for routinely approved items and services, and other prior authorization requests; Expand beneficiary protections to improve enrollee experiences and outcomes; and Require HHS and other agencies to report to Congress on program integrity efforts and other ways to further improve the e-prior authorization process. ###