Congress Mulls New Grant Program to Expand VA Telehealth Efforts

A new bill before Congress aims to “close some of the gaps” in telehealth access at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The VA Telehealth Expansion Act, introduced last week by US Reps. Susie Lee (D-NV) and Jim Banks (R-IN), aims to give the VA Secretary more authority to enter into new partnerships and expand existing deals that support connected health access for veterans. It would create a grant program to facilitate those partnerships, and would give special emphasis to programs that help veterans in rural or underserved parts of the country.

“We cannot let this pandemic compromise health care services for our veterans and servicemembers,” Lee said in a press release. “Because of COVID-19, telehealth video visits at VA have increased by over 1,000 percent between March and June of this year. Even though VA has expanded their telehealth capacity, many veterans still have limited access to telehealth services. There’s clearly no time for excuses. It’s our responsibility to adapt to the changes thrown our way.”

VA officials reported in June that the coronavirus pandemic had led to surge in telehealth and mHealth use, particularly on the department’s three-year-old VA Video Connect platform.

With many of the nation’s 2.6 million veterans living in remote locations, dealing with mobility or transportation issues or simply hesitant to travel to the nearest hospital, the nation’s largest health system has been moving to embrace connected health. The number of veterans accessing healthcare through telehealth jumped 17 percent from 2018 to 2019, while virtual visits made through the VA Video Connect app jumped 235 percent.

This new bill also calls for an assessment of barriers faced by veterans in accessing telehealth, to be completed within 18 months of the bill’s passage, with another report due within four months after that to include recommendations for administrative or legislation action to erase those barriers.

Lee and Banks noted that some $2 billion was set aside in the CARES Act, which was approved in March, to support the purchase of telemedicine technology to address the pandemic. That money was used to, among other things, acquire more than 16,000 laptops and 7,500 phones for veterans.

"The past few months have shown how an unexpected crisis can complicate the VA's mission,” Banks said in the press release. “Our bill is common-sense, bipartisan, and improves the VA's ability to provide veterans with high-quality care no matter the circumstance."

The challenge may be in getting Congress to take notice. Several bills have been filed in recent weeks calling for lawmakers to expand telehealth coverage, particularly in Medicare and Medicaid programs, with the focus on making permanent emergency measures enacted during the pandemic.