FCC Approves Plan to Relaunch COVID-19 Telehealth Program

The Federal Communications Commission will soon accept application for the second round of the COVID-19 Telehealth Program.

The agency’s board of commissioners voted today to formally adopt a Report and Order and Order on Reconsideration to kick-start the program, which received $249.95 million through the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021. The application window will likely open within a month.

“This past year has proven, without a doubt, that telehealth technology is critical to helping address inequities in access to health care services,” Acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a press release. “And with today’s unanimous approval of the Report and Order, the FCC remains ready to address these challenges head on.”

Congress appropriated $200 million last year through the CARES Act to launch the program through the FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau, which issued awards to 539 applicants before running out of money in July.

That program didn’t run as smoothly as officials had hoped, so the FCC moved to tweak the guidelines. Specifically:

• It will establish a system for rating applicants, with more attention paid to hardest-hit and low-income areas as well as projects that failed to gain approval in the first round, those in healthcare provider shortage areas and Tribal communities.
• It will ensure “equitable nationwide distribution of funding so that each state, territory, and the District of Columbia will receive funding since the program’s inception.” Last year’s program funded projects in 47 states, Washington DC and Guam but sent no money to Hawai’i, Alaska or Montana.
• It will set a deadline for applications, rather than reviewing programs as they are submitted, so that all projects can be reviewed at the same time.
• It will award funding in two phases, so that approved projects can be funded quickly and the rest have an opportunity to provide more information to qualify for the second phase.

The COVID-19 Telehealth Program isn’t a grant program, but a reimbursement program. To receive disbursements, healthcare providers are required to submit an invoicing form and supporting documentation to receive reimbursement for eligible telemedicine and mHealth expenses and services.

The money is designated to support “the efforts of health care providers to continue serving their patients by providing telecommunications services, information services, and connected devices necessary to enable telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic.”