Senators Ask Defense Health Agency, VA to Expand Telehealth Access

Some members of Congress are taking the nation’s military healthcare system to task for not making the most of telehealth during the Coronavirus pandemic.

Last week, US Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Martha McSally (R-AZ) sent a letter urging the Defense Department to expand telehealth coverage under TRICARE, the military health system’s healthcare program, overseen by the Defense Health Agency. A few days later, US Senators Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) introduced a bill aimed at expanding the ranks of care providers licensed by the Department of Veterans Affairs to use telehealth.

(For more coronavirus updates, visit our resource page, updated twice daily by Xtelligent Healthcare Media.)

Both actions point to the hardships caused by the ongoing COVID-19 emergency, which has forced many people to stay at home and reduced access to in-person care.

In their May 4 letter to Thomas McCaffery, the Defense Health Agency’s Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, Shaheen and McSally noted that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and many private payers had expanded telehealth coverage for care, particularly for telemental health services.

“Unfortunately, we have heard concerns that TRICARE has not made the same level of commitment to telehealth flexibilities for mental health services, as compared to the Medicare program and private insurers,” they wrote. “This could force military members and their families battling mental illness to risk their own physical health and potential COVID-19 infection in order to access the mental health treatment they need.”

Loeffler and Sinema, meanwhile, have filed a bill aimed at allowing post-graduate healthcare employees and VA healthcare trainees to use connected health platforms, under the supervision of VA-sanctioned care providers, to treat veterans.

“Our nation’s veterans should never have to wait for health care,” Loeffler said in a press release. “While the VA is expanding telehealth programs to help more veterans access care safely from their homes, right now many doctors and nurses are stretched thin amid the Coronavirus pandemic. This legislation will help the VA maximize its capacity and allow health care professionals in training to help provide telehealth care with clinical supervision.”

The bill, called the VA Mission Telehealth Clarification Act, expands on the landmark VA Mission Act, signed into law in June 2018, which greatly expanded the VA’s telemedicine and mHealth network by, among other things, giving VA care providers the authority to treat veterans in any location.

A companion bill was filed in the House in June 2019 by US Rep. Earl “Buddy” Carter (R-GA), who noted the original act allowed only doctors to deliver care.

“This meant that only doctors could provide services through telehealth, not students, interns, residents or fellows,” he said. “This is a major problem especially for interns, residents and fellows who have graduated medical school and are training to become full time doctors because they are not able to get the necessary experience in telehealth at the VA until the time they become fully licensed.”

With their bill, Loeffler and Sinema put the emphasis on hardships caused by COVID-19.

“Increasing telehealth access for Arizona veterans will help keep them safe during the Coronavirus pandemic and make health care more accessible today and into the future,” Sinema said in the press release.