FYI ...<br><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Telehealth Leadership Initiative</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:info@telehealthleadership.org">info@telehealthleadership.org</a>></span><br>
Date: Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 2:21 PM<br>Subject: Take Action Today to Show for Telehealth Legislation!<br>To: <a href="mailto:csbritain@gmail.com">csbritain@gmail.com</a><br><br><br>
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<div> </div>Telehealth News Update</font> </font></strong></div>
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<div><font color="#8a383a"><font size="2"><strong>Telehealth Leadership Initiative</strong></font> </font></div><br></font></td></tr></tbody></table>
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<div align="center"> <font face="Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" color="#4f604f"><font size="2"><strong>Telehealth Leadership Initiative</strong> </font></font></div>
<div align="center"><font face="Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" color="#4f604f" size="2"> </font></div>
<div align="center"><font face="Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" color="#4f604f" size="2">1500 K Street, NW</font></div>
<div align="center"><font face="Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" color="#4f604f" size="2">Suite 1100</font></div>
<div align="center"><font face="Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" color="#4f604f" size="2">Washington, DC 20005</font></div>
<div align="center"><font size="1"><font color="#4f604f"><font face="Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" size="2"><a href="http://www.telehealthleadership.org/" target="_blank">www.telehealthleadership.org</a></font> </font></font></div>
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<p align="center"><font size="4">Urgent!</font></p>
<div align="center"> Take Action Today to Show Your Support for Telehealth Legislation!</div></font></strong></font></td></tr></tbody></table>
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<div align="justify">Yesterday, the nation's focus on health care turned to the United States Senate as Senators began considering health care reform. Thanks to Senator Tom Udall (D-NM), telehealth legislation is on the Senate's agenda as the health care reform debate continues.</div>
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<div align="justify">Senator Udall needs your help to encourage other Senators to join him in cosponsoring the telehealth legislation he introduced, S. 2741, the Rural Telemedicine Enhancing Community Health (TECH) Act of 2009, which includes a major provision that addresses the problem of telehealth credentialing and privileging by proxy.</div>
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<div align="justify">Senator Udall's bill contains three provisions to expand telehealth programs:</div>
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<div align="justify">Establishes telehealth pilot projects to analyze clinical outcomes and cost effectiveness associated with telehealth services in a variety of geographic areas; </div></li></ul>
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<div align="justify">Expands access to tele-stroke services through the definition of "originating site" to include urban sites and defines new stroke telehealth services for coverage; and </div></li></ul>
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<div align="justify">Improves access to telehealth services at Indian Health Service facilities and Federally qualified health centers by expanding access to store-and-forward and videoconferencing technologies. </div></li>
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<div align="justify">TECH also addresses the critical issue of credentialing and privileging of telehealth providers by requiring the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to allow remote credentialing and privileging. This language aims to decrease the administrative and financial burden that is often caused by requiring telehealth providers to be individually credentialed and privileged by all hospitals in which they administer care, via telehealth.<br>
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<div align="justify">Senator Udall needs the support of other Senators to demonstrate to the Senate leaders the importance of these telehealth issues.<br></div>
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<div align="justify">Please <strong>ACT NOW</strong> by taking the following steps:</div>
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<div align="justify">1) <u><a href="http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102859626884&s=4441&e=001542vp6NrPw2sf_W28l8CUyMkvPKmMLNZkdQ8jc0XFW0-7W-AJyFWOpZ2NrEv4Vr2SA5bZo8xnrBzLKya22wQqJqRC8DeG-Z2FbhpRVV2eIt6VW7nzqbDaiM-TPAHmuGRvA1m1ZyoQgb6ucGn57JO9w==" target="_blank" shape="rect"><font color="#4f604f">Click here</font></a></u> for background information on this issue and a sample letter to use to email your Senators.</div>
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<div align="justify">2) Call the offices of your two Senators and ask that they show their support for telehealth by cosponsoring S. 2741.</div>
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<div align="justify">3) Follow-up your call with an email to reaffirm your phone message.</div>
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<div align="justify"><strong>We need your senators to cosponsor S. 2741. Please contact them today!</strong></div></font></font></font></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr>
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-- <br>Catherine S. Britain<br><a href="mailto:csbritain@gmail.com">csbritain@gmail.com</a><br>541-910-7366<br>