The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services began allowing this change for both public and private insurers on Oct. 1, KFF Health News reported.
Now doctors, nurses and other providers can provide reimbursed care in a “non-permanent location on the street or found environment.” Most of the patients who will be helped by this are low-income, disabled and older people on Medicaid and Medicare, KFF Health News reported. Other states had already taken this on, starting with California in 2021. Hawaii also does this, and street medicine teams already do work in big cities like Boston and Fort Worth, Texas.“It’s a bombshell,” said Dave Lettrich, executive director of the Pittsburgh-based nonprofit Bridge to the Mountains, which provides outreach services to street medicine teams in Pennsylvania.