Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1353232
63 CIO / HEALTH IT 22 states with reimbursement provisions for telehealth By Jackie Drees T wenty-two states have laws that address pay- ment and reimbursement rates for telehealth services, including requiring commercial in- surers to pay providers the same rate for services delivered via telehealth as in person, according to a February report from law firm Foley and Lardner. For its report, Foley and Lardner examined state tele- health laws such as reimbursement provisions. ese include requiring payers to reimburse telehealth ser- vices at the same rate as in person, as well as setting instructions on how providers and payers must nego- tiate rates for telehealth services. Here are the 22 states whose law has a reimbursement provision for telehealth, according to the report: • Arkansas • California • Colorado • Delaware • Georgia • Hawaii • Kentucky • Louisiana • Massachusetts • Minnesota • Missouri • New Hampshire • New Jersey • New Mexico • North Dakota • Ohio • Tennessee • Texas • Utah • Vermont • Virginia • Washington n 11 numbers that show how big Optum's role in healthcare is By Katie Adams O ptum, which continues to expand, made headlines in January for its plan to acquire Change Healthcare for $13 billion. The deal will enable Optum to offer its healthcare clients soft- ware, data analytics and other healthcare technology services. Here are 11 numbers that show how big Optum is in healthcare and how it plans to grow: Note: Numbers were gathered Feb. 9. • Optum announced it will buy Nashville, Tenn.-based data analytics firm Change Healthcare in a deal amounting to about $13 billion. • Optum serves more than 125 million individual consumers and 80 percent of health plans. • OptumInsights serves 90 percent of U.S. hospitals. • Optum 360, the company's division that helps hospitals and health systems improve revenue performance and patient experience, manages $65 billion in annual billings for unaffiliated customers. • OptumCare includes more than 53,000 physicians and 1,450 neighborhood clinics. • OptumCare plans to add 10,000 physicians in 2021. • OptumCare treats 1.3 million Medicare Advantage or dually eligi- ble members under global capitation. • OptumHealth reported nearly $10.5 billion in revenue for the third quarter of 2020, a 29 percent increase over the same period in 2019. n North Korea tried to hack Pfizer for COVID-19 vaccine data: BBC By Jackie Drees S outh Korea's National Intelligence Service has accused North Ko- rea of attempting to hack into pharmaceutical giant Pfizer's sys- tems to steal COVID-19 vaccine technology, according to a Feb. 16 BBC report. South Korea's National Intelligence Service privately briefed lawmak- ers there about the alleged attack; it's unclear whether any data was stolen, according to the report. North Korea was expecting a shipment of 2 million doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine the same week the BBC report came out. The alleged hacking incident came just a few months after the Europe- an Medicines Agency was hacked for its Pfizer and Moderna vaccine data. In January, the EMA announced that the hackers responsible for the attack had manipulated the information before publishing it online as a way to undermine the public's trust in vaccines. n