Maryland Lawmakers Take on Telehealth Expansion, Broadband Access

Maryland lawmakers are launching two separate efforts to expand telehealth access in their state beyond the coronavirus pandemic.

The Legislature is moving forward with a bill aimed at permanently extending emergency measures for telehealth access and coverage that are in place for the COVID-19 public health emergency. They’re also looking at two bills that would improve broadband access – a key factor to connected health adoption – and create a state office to further expansion of high-speed internet services.

The Preserve Telehealth Access Act of 2021, introduced in both the Senate and House at the beginning of the year, targets some popular telehealth topics in Legislatures across the country, as well as in the nation’s capital. Specifically, it would mandate payment parity, continue coverage for appropriate audio-only telemedicine services (such as phone calls), remove originating and distant site restrictions on telehealth and expand remote patient monitoring programs to align with state health initiatives that support Maryland’s Total Cost of Care Model.

The bill has the support of the Maryland Hospital Association, which is warning that the state could see a dangerous slump in telehealth adoption if no rules are in place to continue coverage after the PHE ends.

“To back away could leave thousands of Marylanders without care,” the organization said in a pamphlet. “We need long-term solutions to permanently remove barriers to deliver safe, reliable care via telehealth to all Marylanders. By preserving telehealth flexibility you will support the investments made to build infrastructure to meet patients where they are.”

A handful of states have moved to permanently extend those emergency telehealth measures, while others are waiting to see what the federal government does for telehealth once the PHE ends before putting their own rules in place.

Telehealth advocates fear that healthcare providers who have flocked to telehealth during the pandemic will scale back or end those services if they don’t have assurances that access and coverage guidelines will be in place after the emergency.

Broadband access is a whole different story, and one that the federal government is addressing. The Federal Communications Commission’s $100 million Connected Care Pilot Program is up and running, and its COVID-19 Telehealth Program will soon kick back into gear after receiving almost $250 million in funding from the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021. That bill also called for the development of an Emergency Broadband Benefit Program.

All of those programs aim to expand broadband access in rural and underserved parts of the country where internet services are unreliable or non-existent, and in doing so both allow residents to access telehealth services and give providers a platform to expand those services.

Maryland lawmakers want to make sure the state is on top of that game. SB 66 calls for a statewide audit of broadband services, so that officials know which counties need help bringing internet up to speed, through a new Office of Digital Inclusion in the Department of Housing and Urban Development. And HB 43 calls for a creation of an Office of Broadband and Joint Committee on Broadband through the state’s Department of Information Technology.

The bills would give the state a needed infrastructure to track federal funds coming into Maryland and help guide efforts to improve broadband access and telehealth expansion.