Bill That Would Expand Telehealth Flexibilities In The Home Sees New Life

A bipartisan group of 60 senators reintroduced a bill on Friday that would allow patients easier access to virtual appointments from their homes.

Currently, COVID-19 era telehealth flexibilities are set to expire on September 30. The legislation would make these telehealth flexibilities permanent and expand coverage through Medicare. Specifically, the Creating Opportunities Now for Necessary and Effective Care Technologies (CONNECT) eliminates all geographic restrictions on telehealth services, while also expanding originating sites to the location of the patient, including homes.

It also lifts the in-person visit requirement for telemental health services, and would require more published data on telehealth.

“We live in a digital world, and our health services should reflect that. In the past decade, telehealth has made medical care more accessible for patients across the state and country,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said in a statement. “It is time to make telehealth coverage permanent for Medicare recipients so that more Americans, especially those in rural Mississippi, have access to health care.”

Wicker and U.S. Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) led the bill’s reintroduction.

The CONNECT for Health Act was most recently introduced by a group of senators in 2019. The bill was initially introduced in 2016, then re-introduced in 2017.

Telehealth is top of mind in the home-based care community. Earlier this year, the National Alliance for Care at Home identified expanding the use of telehealth as a key priority.

In addition to the CONNECT for Health Act, lawmakers have introduced other legislation with the goal of expanding telehealth utilization in recent years.

In 2021, lawmakers introduced a new version of the Home Health Emergency Access to Telehealth (HEAT) Act. The previous year, the HEAT Act had been introduced in both the House and Senate.

A Senate bill designed to make telehealth more accessible to seniors living with chronic illnesses was introduced in 2017.

So far, the CONNECT for Health Act has received support from over 150 organizations, including AARP, National Association of Community Health Centers, the American Medical Association and the American Telemedicine Association.

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