
Annual Meeting
ANCE 2024 will take place on Friday, April 5th at the Four Points Sheraton in Norwood.
If you would like to exhibit at the conference, please register here: https://www.eatrightma.org/ance/exhibitor.cfm
MAND's Executive Committee and Public Policy Panel are pleased to announce that, in conjunction with our partner organizations in the tMED Coalition, MAND was able to successfully advocate for a number of important changes to the long-awaited MA Division of Insurance (DOI) telehealth regulations, released on Friday, November 17. These changes clarify and expand upon definitions governing telehealth coverage and reimbursement as outlined in the "Patients First Act" (a.k.a., telehealth bill) signed into law on January 1, 2021.
The Bottom Line:
These regulations should take effect in approximately two weeks, once they have been published in the Massachusetts Register by the secretary of state. At that time, we will likely see health plans start to shift some of their policies to ensure compliance with the regulations.
We will be issuing more information and analysis of these changes in coming weeks, to be sent via similar e-blast and made available on www.eatrightma.org. In the meantime, please find additional information on some of the key regulatory changes below.
MAND Executive Committee & Public Policy Panel
Additional detail on the regulatory changes:
Behavioral Health Definition
Thank you to those who joined us on November 8th for the policy update and telehealth town hall. We will be posting answers to submitted questions here very soon.
Telehealth Town Hall
Please find the slides from the January town hall event here.
You can view the recording by copying and pasting this link into your browser: https://www.veed.io/view/3618e1de-ceb0-48e5-85aa-08aeda134691?panel=share
An Act Putting Patients First took effect in January 2021 as part of Chapter 260 of the Acts of 2020. It covered many areas of health care services provision in MA, including “no surprise billing” and COVID-related services.
Telehealth advocacy in the 2023-2024 legislative session
MAND’s Board of Directors approved hiring lobbyists to help us advocate for MNT provided via telehealth and retained lobbyists ahead of the new two-year legislative session which began on January 4, 2023.
Since then, MAND’s lobbyists have been offering their expertise to guide MAND in its advocacy activities, which include:
Our lobbyists worked with the MAND Executive Committee and Director of Public Policy to draft two versions of a bill to establish payment parity for MNT provided via all modalities of telehealth, including audio only.
The lobbyists then worked with two state legislators supportive of the work of dietitians to file these bills at the start of the new legislative session in February 2023:
On May 2nd, 2023 the Financial Services Committee held a public hearing for organizations and individuals to present live testimony in support of bills referred to the committee. MAND’s President-elect and Director of Public Policy presented live testimony before the committee in support of “An Act relative to telehealth parity for nutrition counseling.”
As a follow-up to the live testimony, MAND submitted written testimony in the form of a longer document with links to MNT outcomes studies and a collection of patient testimonials. These documents will be reviewed by members of the Financial Services Committee as part of the process for determining whether they will advance the bill in the legislative process by reporting the bill favorably out of committee.
Telehealth FAQs
ANCE 2024 will take place on Friday, April 5th at the Four Points Sheraton in Norwood.
If you would like to exhibit at the conference, please register here: https://www.eatrightma.org/ance/exhibitor.cfm
Do You Want to Make a Difference for Your Profession and Your Community? Visit our Public Policy Section.
Join the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and choose Massachusetts as your home state.