FCC Wants Advice on Relaunching COVID-19 Telehealth Program

Federal officials are seeking public comments on plans to restart the COVID-19 Telehealth Program, which last year provided funding for broadband expansion and other connected health resources to roughly 540 healthcare programs across the country.

The Federal Communications Commission is getting $249.5 million from the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, which was signed by President Donald Trump on December 27, to kick start the program back to life. And they’re hoping to solve some of the problems that had plagued the first round, which ended in July when it exhausted its $200 million budget.

The program, launched in April 2020 with funding from the CARES Act, came under scrutiny from lawmakers following complaints that programs selected for funding weren’t getting their money, and that those not selected weren’t being told why their applications were being rejected.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai defended the program in a June letter to Congress, and promised to conduct a review of the program. That review may be put on hold as he and the FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau gear up for round two.

“Telehealth has been a critical factor in helping us address the COVID-19 pandemic, which continues to have a devastating impact on the health of the American people,” Pai said in a January 6 press release announcing the public comment period. “Last year, the FCC quickly stood up its COVID-19 Telehealth Program, allocating the full $200 million provided in the CARES Act to worthy telehealth projects across the country. We have already seen the program’s positive impact on expanding access to telehealth services across the country, from health clinics providing bi-lingual telehealth services to rural hospitals connecting with record numbers of remote patients. I’m pleased that this new support from Congress will enable us to extend this program into 2021. I am confident that our team at the Commission will work expeditiously to provide additional support for telehealth services through Round 2 of the program.”

In its notice seeking public comment, the FCC lays out a number of questions it wants to answer before moving on. It’s looking for advice on how to fine-tune the process, including how to evaluate funding applications, whether to change the conditions for approval and how to address those who weren’t funded in the earlier round.

“This includes such questions as: Should we target funding to hardest hit areas and how should the ‘hardest hit’ areas be defined?,” the press release adds. “Given the changing landscape of the pandemic in recent months, how should previous, unfunded applications be addressed? And are there lessons learned from the initial round of the program that could lead to program improvements?”

As with the first round, the funding is a reimbursement program rather than a grant program, designed to support “the telecommunications services, information services, and connected devices necessary to provide critical telehealth and connected care services.”

In all, 539 funding applications were approved, with as much as $1 million going to programs large and small in 47 states, Washington DC and Guam. No programs in Hawaii, Alaska or Montana were included in the first round.

Comments are due by January 19.  No date has been set for when the second round will begin.

This comes as the FCC is poised to announce funding recipients for its Connected Care Pilot Program, a three-year, $100 million project aimed at expanding telehealth access for low-income Americans, veterans and other vulnerable populations.

That program was unveiled in 2018 but sidelined by the coronavirus pandemic. Applications were accepted from November 6 through December 7. An announcement on that program is expected soon.