The California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF) www.cetfund.org submitted comments to the President’s Broadband Opportunity Council (BOC) www.ntia.doc.gov/category/broadband-opportunity-council in response to a notice seeking ideas on how the federal government can best promote broadband deployment and adoption.
The CETF document notes that many communities without broadband are being left behind in the Digital Age. The document points out that more than nine million Californians who live in remote rural communities on tribal lands, in low-income neighborhoods, or who have a disability are faced with not being able to communicate instantaneously with others using their smart phone, tablet, or computer.
So as the document states, it is important to close the Digital Divide, to achieve broadband deployment, to accelerate broadband adoption to achieve economic prosperity, achieve a good quality of life, and provide for family self-sufficiency.
There are several sections in the comments that refer specifically to telehealth. Section 7 discusses the need to reform Medicare Reimbursement policies for telehealth and wants better regulations concerning reimbursement for telehealth costs.
Today, Medicare only reimburses for telehealth services when the originating site is in a Health Professional Shortage Area or in a county outside of any Metropolitan Statistical Areas as defined by HRSA and the Census Bureau.
CETF and others want to see the policy changed to allow the originating site to include a patient’s home, not just a medical facility such as a practitioner’s office, hospital, or rural health clinic.
Also, the current policy should be changed that only allows Medicare to pay for face-to-face interactive video consultation services where the patient is present. All store-and-forward applications, such as teleradiology, remote EDG applications, and teledermatology should also be covered.
By doing this, private payers and states may be encouraged to adopt this federal policy as a standard. Currently, private payers and states vary as to reimbursement policies for telehealth applications.
In another comment on telehealth, CETF wants to use telehealth and tele-education to leverage rural broadband. CETF refers to the fact that the development of a statewide telehealth network called the California Telehealth Network (CTN) has promoted telehealth applications in rural health clinics, government-owned hospitals, and clinics.
Using a $22.1 million grant plus matching funds, CTN has successfully connected 270 sites by broadband and helps the sites understand the various telehealth applications. This has made it possible to facilitate the exchange of EHRs and to obtain specialty care from urban partners.
In section 24, CETF discusses issues related to improving broadband access and adoption in rural areas and specifically discusses how telehealth networks can play an important role especially in rural, remote, and tribal communities.
CETF is asking that federal funds available for rural-urban telehealth networks include funds for operational costs, necessary equipment, and wants robust internet funding from the FCC’s Healthcare Connect Fund www.fcc.gov/encylopedia/rural-health-care plus coordinated funding from federal health agencies. The objective should be to reform health reimbursement mechanisms and policies and to encourage efficient and cost saving telehealth applications to use for high quality consults.
Go to www.ntia.doc.gov/files/ntia/california_emerging_technology_fund_3_boc.pdf for the document submitted to BOC.