FCC Closes Applications for COVID-19 Telehealth Program Funding

The Federal Communications Commission has stopped accepting applications for its COVID-19 Telehealth Program, and expects to use up the $200 million fund in July

The news came alongside a report issued last week by the FCC, along with a 12^th set of funding awards. As of last week, the agency had approved $157.64 million for 444 funding applications from healthcare providers in 46 states and Washington DC.

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In its notice of closing the filing window, the FCC said demand for funding has exceeded available funds.

“The Bureau anticipates that funding requests in applications already received will exhaust the remaining Program appropriation and continuing to consider applications would impose unnecessary burdens on health care providers who may be preparing applications that will not be considered before the Program funds are exhausted,” the notice reads. “Therefore, it is not in the public interest to accept new Program applications.”

The five-page report issued last week by the FCC per the requirements of the CARES Act, which created the program, laid out the specifics for the program, explaining how the agency is selecting applicants and auditing the program.

In this report, the FCC said it “anticipates exhausting the funding by mid-July or shortly thereafter,” and will continue reviewing submitted applications and award funding “on a rolling basis until the funding is exhausted,” with awards announced on a weekly basis.

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

The report lays out the plan for reimbursing providers:

“An applicant that received a funding commitment (‘funding recipient’) must first pay the vendor or service provider for the costs of the eligible services and/or connected devices received before requesting reimbursement for those costs from the Telehealth Program,” the report notes. “After a funding recipient has paid for and received the eligible items, it can then invoice the FCC for the cost of the eligible services and/or connected devices up to the amount of its funding commitment. Funding recipients must be registered with the federal System for Award Management (SAM) to invoice the FCC.”

“Funding commitments are recorded in the FCC’s financial system, and once funding recipients are enrolled in the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service Invoice Processing Platform (IPP), they may begin submitting invoices to the FCC,” the report continues. “To request a reimbursement for the cost of the eligible items, funding recipients are required to submit and make certifications on the reimbursement request form and provide supporting documentation verifying purchases made under the Telehealth Program.”

Prior to the report, the FCC had come under criticism from some members of Congress who questioned whether providers were getting the money awarded to them.

“While the FCC has posted weekly updates of funding awards, we are troubled by the lack of transparency regarding the health care providers who have applied but have not yet received an award,” US Reps Frank Pallone Jr (D-NJ), chair of the Commerce and Energy Committee, and Michael Doyle Jr. (D-PA), chair of the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, said in a June 12 letter to FCC leadership. “We have heard reports that many health care providers are facing issues obtaining funds, particularly those serving tribal lands.”

“Similarly, health care providers report they have been unable to receive funding for some important telehealth equipment that we believe should be covered under the law,” they added.

Pallone and Doyle had asked for weekly updates on the number of applications received for funding from the $200 million program, as well as those approved for funding, those not approved for funding and the amount of money dispersed to healthcare providers. It is not known whether the FCC is giving those details to lawmakers just yet.

In the meantime, last week’s list of award recipients contained the usual mix of large and small healthcare providers, including St. Louis-based Ascension Health; the Avera eCare program; Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, MA; the Children’s Center in Detroit; the Connecticut Hospice; Easter Seals Michigan; Pennsylvania’s Geisinger Medical Center; New Jersey’s Hackensack University Medical Center; the Icahn School of Medicine in New York City; Maine Medical Center; the Ne Ia Shing Clinic in Onamia, MN; Ohio’s ProMedica Health System; the University of Florida Department of Pediatrics; the University of Virginia Health System; three more hospitals in the UPMC health system; and the Utah Navajo Health System.

The latest list of approved applications can be found here.