At a hearing of the state’s Joint Committee on Financial Services this Tuesday, several MHA members testified about the importance of bills that would strengthen local hospital-at-home and telehealth services.

While MHA and its partners work hard to design and advocate for priority legislation, there is often nothing more powerful for a legislator than to hear from an “on-the-ground” provider about why proposals should advance and become law.

Such was the case when Dr. Constantinos (Taki) Michaelidis of UMass Memorial Health and Susan Stampek of Beth Isreal Lahey Health testified in support of An Act Increasing Access to Acute Hospital-at-Home Services. The bill would require across-the-board insurance coverage for hospital-at-home programs, making them scalable and sustainable for providers to operate in the long term. Michaelidis is the medical director of UMMH’s hospital-at-home program; Stampek is the vice president of BILH’s program.

And two leaders from Boston Children’s Hospital – Heather Meyers (Senior Director, Virtual Care & Policy Lead, IDHA), and Katrina Cook (Digital Health New Product Launch Specialist) – urged passage of An Act Relative to Telehealth and Digital Equity for Patients. That proposal would, among other things, require insurers to reimburse providers for all telehealth services on par with what they would receive for delivering similar services in-person and require health plans to identify and offer digital health education to their members to assist them in accessing medically necessary covered telehealth benefits.

You can read more about the bills here.