Kentucky Lawmakers Look to Create a Division of Telehealth Services

Roughly two years after passing one of the more progressive telehealth bills in the nation, Kentucky lawmakers are considering creating a cabinet-level department aimed at overseeing and supporting all connected health programs.

Senate Bill 123, which was passed unanimously by the Senate and has now moved on to the House, would confirm various executive orders relating to the reorganization of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services. One of those orders would create a Division of Telehealth Services within the Office of Health Data and Analytics.

“The division shall provide oversight, guidance, and direction to Medicaid providers delivering care using telehealth,” the bill reads. “The division shall implement telehealth services and develop standards, guidance, resources, and education to help promote access to healthcare services in the Commonwealth.”

The bill follows up on SB 112, the landmark 38-page telehealth bill approved by the Legislature in 2018 and signed into law by Governor Matt Bevin. That bill, among other things, established a definition for telehealth that includes asynchronous (store-and-forward) telemedicine technology, allowed the patient’s home to be classified as an originating site for telehealth delivery and created coverage and payment parity for the Medicaid, Medicaid managed care organizations and commercial health plans.

The new law, which went into effect in 2019, also eliminated the requirement that all new telehealth programs covered by Medicaid and commercial health plans originate with the commonwealth’s officials telehealth network – thereby giving healthcare providers more freedom to pursue their own projects.

With new programs sprouting up across the state, lawmakers re moving to make sure the state has a handle on oversight. In a recent summary of legislative action, State Sen. Wil Schroder noted SB 123 would establish a division of telehealth services to provide that oversight.

Schroder said the new division would also take the place of a telehealth board that had been disbanded by the state a few years ago.

Kentucky isn’t the only legislative body looking to coordinate its telehealth efforts. Earlier this month, a bill introduced in Congress aims to take the Office for the Advancement of Telehealth (OAT) out from under the purview of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and put it under direct supervision of the Office of the Health and Human Services Secretary.