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Meeting Public Comments

Subcommittee meeting and times are as follows:
HF 269
A bill for an act prohibiting certain health carriers from excluding certain out-of-state health care professionals from participating as providers, via telehealth, under the carriers’ policies, plans, and contracts, and including effective date and applicability provisions.(See HF 731.)
Subcommittee members: Boden-CH, Anderson, Bergan
Date: Wednesday, February 3, 2021
Time: 12:00 PM - 12:30 PM
Location: RM 102, Sup. Ct. Consult
Names and comments are public records. Remaining information is considered a confidential record.
Comments Submitted:

02-03-2021
Renee Schulte [Integrated Telehealth Partners]
Thank you for bringing this bill forward. ITP is supportive of this bill due to the following reasons: Integrated Telehealth Partners is one of the largest Psychiatrist provider groups in Iowa. Our home office is in West Des Moines and we have over 40 Psychiatrists/Psych ARNPs in our group providing care in 80 Iowa counties via telepsychiatry. We provide 24/7 psychiatric assessments to 60 rural Iowa hospital ERs and 3 Iowa Access Centers. We also provide outpatient psychiatric care at over 25 community mental health clinic sites.A significant amount of the care we provide today is being funded by the Iowa MHDS Regions or county tax dollars because Iowa insurance companies refuse to credential our 30 Psychiatrists/ARNPs who dont have a physical presence in Iowa. These 30 providers are licensed and qualified to practice in Iowa, but the insurance companies refuse to credential them even though 15 of them only see patients in the state of Iowa. In the last 6 months, we submitted 406 claims to Iowas largest insurance provider and only received payment on 70 of the claims because the other 336 claims were from providers residing outside of Iowa. It is not the same for insurance companies in other states such as Minnesota. If Iowa wants excellent healthcare and mental healthcare in the state this is an important piece of legislation to ensure access to medical specialists.