FCC Unveils COVID-19 Telehealth Program, Updates Connected Care Pilot

The Federal Communications Commission is launching a new telehealth program aimed at using $200 million in new federal funding to improve broadband connectivity for connected health services.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai unveiled the new program today, while at the same time providing an update on the agency’s Connected Care Pilot Program, which aims to improve telehealth access in remote and rural parts of the country.

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

The new COVID-19 Telehealth Program comes as a result of the Coronavirus Aid, relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump last week.

“As we self-isolate and engage in social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth will continue to become more and more important across the country,” Pai said in a press release issued this afternoon. “Our nation’s health care providers are under incredible, and still increasing, strain as they fight the pandemic. My plan for the COVID-19 Telehealth Program is a critical tool to address this national emergency.”

“I’m calling on my fellow Commissioners to vote promptly to adopt the draft order I circulated today, so that we can take immediate steps to provide support for telehealth services and devices to health care providers during this national crisis,” he said. “I’d like to thank Congress for acting with bipartisan decisiveness to allocate funding for the COVID-19 Telehealth Program and Commissioner (Brendan) Carr for his leadership on telehealth issues, including the Connected Care Pilot Program.”

The new program would offer qualified healthcare providers full funding to buy “telecommunications services, information services and devices necessary to enable the provision of telehealth services during this emergency period.” Applicants are asked to submit a streamlined application to the FCC, whose governing committee would award funds on a rolling basis until the pandemic is over.

Pai is also kicking into motion the Connected Care Pilot Program, a three-year, $100 million effort unveiled in July 2018 to expand telehealth and mHealth programs to benefit underserved populations, especially low-income residents and veterans. The FCC approved the proposal in July 2019 and has been gathering comments on the proposed project since then.

The program would provide funding to selected pilot connected health projects to cover 85 percent of eligible costs for broadband connectivity, equipment and information services.

Pai sees the program as a broader study of how telehealth and mHealth can be permanently integrated into the Universal Service Fund.

Earlier this month, the FCC announced changes to the Rural Health Care (RHC) and E-Rate programs to allow broadband providers to support connected health programs designed to address the Coronavirus pandemic.

“By waiving certain FCC rules today, we are giving service providers the chance to step up and give health care providers more tools to fight the ongoing pandemic and serve patients more effectively, like increased capacity, more equipment, additional services, and other tools that will help them deliver the best possible patient care,” Pai said in a press release. “I expect that these private-sector efforts will complement the Commission’s ongoing work with Congress to appropriate funds for a Remote Learning Initiative and a COVID Connected Care Pilot - programs that would allow us to use federal funds to support in-home equipment for patients and students impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.”