Telehealth Plays a Key Role in Black Maternal Momnibus Act of 2021

Proposed telehealth legislation is included in a package of 12 bills designed to address racial and ethnic disparities in maternal health outcomes.

The Black Maternal Momnibus Act of 2021, introduced earlier this month by a group of lawmakers led by Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) and US Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-IL), includes the Tech to Save Moms Act. That bill, sponsored by Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) and Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), calls on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to consider payment models that improve the integration of telehealth services into maternal healthcare programs and establish grant programs for models of care that include access to broadband internet and remote patient monitoring services and programs that use mHealth tools to address social determinants of health.

Other bills in the package, which is endorsed by more than 190 organizations, would make targeted investments in programs that address social determinants of health, fund community-based organizations and programs that might use connected health tools and platforms to address issues like substance abuse, pre- and post-partum mental health, veteran care and building the perinatal workforce, and improve data collection efforts and quality measures to improve health outcomes and access to care.

“As the rest of the world works to improve maternal health outcomes, skyrocketing maternal mortality rates here in the United States are precipitating a public health crisis -- one that puts mothers of color especially at risk," Booker said in a press release. “We simply cannot continue to accept this alarming status quo.”

According to Booker and his colleagues, the US has the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world, with minorities suffering disproportionally. Black women are dying from pregnancy-related complications at a rate three to four times higher than white women, they noted.

"As maternal mortality rates continue to drop around the world, they are rising in the U.S., leaving behind devastated families and children who will grow up never knowing their moms,” Underwood, who co-founded and co-chairs the Black Maternal Health Caucus, said in the press release. “This crisis demands urgent attention and serious action to save the lives of Black mothers and all women of color and birthing people across the county."

The project mirrors a similar effort one year ago to address the nation’s high maternal mortality rate, when bills such as the Data Mapping to Save Moms’ Lives Act and the Rural Maternal and Obstetric Modernization Services (MOMS) Act were introduced but eventually lost in the chaos surrounding the coronavirus pandemic.  

The bill package also comes at the same time as telehealth advocates are collaborating to address the use of connected health to establish equity in care.

The Telehealth Equity Coalition, launched earlier this month during a virtual conference organized by the American Telemedicine Association, aims to “improve access to quality and affordable healthcare by increasing adoption of telehealth, especially among those who have been left out or left behind.”