Tag:

Payment Processing

Illinois House Bill 3498: Telehealth Expansion and Payment Equality

The Coalition to Protect Telehealth and State Representative Deb Conroy of the Illinois 46th House District have introduced legislation that would permanently expand access to telehealth services for Illinoisans.  The legislation also details provisions that promote telehealth payment rate partity between telehealth services and in-person care.  In a direct response to the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth providers have been granted temporary waivers to align their payment rates with those prescribed for traditional care in health care facilities.  These waivers have served as stabilizing financial mechanisms for many practitioners experiencing revenue loss due to the restrictions on elective procedures and non-emergency care.  The proposed legislation would give patients more freedom to utilize telehealth services by removing the patient responsibilities to demonstrate hardship or access issues.

Nearly Half of All Businesses Out of Compliance With Payment Card Security Standards

While the legal community has spent much of the last year exhaustively dissecting the European Union’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), nearly half of businesses in the United States are still not compliant with standards governing the collection, storage, and disposal of payment (credit/debit) card data. Businesses of all sizes should work to ensure that they understand and are in compliance with these standards, or risk significant exposure in the event of a payment card data breach traced back to their organization.