Health and Media

A growing number of Americans turning to telehealth appointments with medical providers in the wake of widespread hospital closings in remote communities, and a shortage of local primary care doctors, specialists and other providers. Long-distance doctor-to-doctor consultations via video also fall under the "telehealth" or "telemedicine" rubric.

Perhaps the biggest news of the week was the agenda for the Federal Communications Commission's July 10 Open Meeting, which FCC Chairman Ajit Pai laid out in a blog post on June 18, 2019. I'm traveling to New York this week; below is a shorter-than-usual weekly that takes a look at how Chairman Pai plans to take education out of the Educational Broadband Service -- and broadcast television.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the items below are tentatively on the agenda for the Open FCC Meeting scheduled for Wednesday, July 10, 2019:

Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr visited a community health care clinic in rural Laurel Fork (VA) where he announced that the FCC will be voting at its July 10th meeting to advance a $100 million Connected Care Pilot Program. The FCC will vote on a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking at its July Open Meeting that seeks comment on:

In June 2018, the Federal Communications Commission adopted rules to address increasing demand in the Rural Health Care (RHC) Program. Specifically, the FCC: (1) increased the annual RHC Program funding cap; (2) provided for the annual RHC Program funding cap to be adjusted for inflation; and (3) established a process to carry-forward unused funds from past funding years for use in future funding years. The FCC also directed the Wireline Competition Bureau to announce a specific amount of unused funds from prior funding years to be carried forward to increase available funding for future fu

Fewer than 10% of US physicians practice in rural communities, where 25% of Americans live. Yet, rural Americans may need more health care as they become increasingly older and sicker relative to their urban counterparts. Telemedicine has been proposed as a solution to improve access to care. Federal and state policymakers have enacted policies to expand telemedicine use among publicly and commercially insured beneficiaries. However, whether Americans with the poorest access to care have the necessary broadband Internet capability to fully benefit from telemedicine is unknown.

With this Order, the Federal Communications Commission takes necessary steps to provide full funding for all eligible services requested from the Rural Health Care universal service support mechanism (RHC Program) for the 2018 funding year (FY). In FY 2018, multi-year and upfront payment funding requests filed during the window sought support exceeding the $150 million funding cap for those payments. FCC rules would require the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) to prorate requested support received by eligible health care providers.

The job of VA’s Office of Rural Health (ORH) is to increase access to care for the nearly three million Veterans living in rural communities who rely on VA for health care. “Telehealth is a game-changer for rural Veterans,” said Dr. Thomas Klobucar, ORH Executive Director. “It breaks through the barriers of cost, time, and distance. Bringing rehabilitation services to the Veteran’s living room can connect patients with the care they might otherwise struggle to receive.”

The Benton Foundation unequivocally opposes any proposals from the Federal Communications Commission that would allow the FCC to shirk its responsibilities to meet its Congressionally-mandated mission. The FCC is supposed to ensure:

South Carolina is expanding access to telemedicine — or, put broadly, health care done via the internet. This virtual way of seeing a doctor or managing health is seen as a solution to deteriorating health care services in rural parts of the state. SC’s government has spent $68 million in one-time commitments since 2013 on telemedicine. But it’s no secret that progress is stunted if people don’t have internet access. Some 537,000 people in South Carolina don’t have an adequate internet connection at home — about 11 percent of the state’s population, and 26 percent of the rural population.