Experts call for continued federal aid to state, local telemedicine services
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While President Donald Trump has supported the expansion of telemedicine in the past, some experts are concerned about how he will handle the crucial health service moving forward.
President Donald Trump recently initiated the Make America Healthy Again Commission in a bid to mitigate chronic disease and illness in the country. Part of that mission includes expanding telehealth services to increase health care access, according to an executive order released last week.
Trump played a large role in the expansion of telehealth during his first presidency, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced health facilities to close their doors and direct patients to video conference platforms. His actions included expanding Medicare coverage for telemedicine services, allowing remote prescribing of controlled substances and enabling doctors to practice across state lines.
And while states can decide how to use their own funds to support telemedicine services, there is a risk of exacerbating health disparities without the federal government’s assistance to level the playing field, said Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. That’s why “the federal contribution is absolutely essential for [telemedicine] to be a seamless system,” he explained.
But currently, “it is unclear what the Trump administration’s financial policies will be in terms of supporting telemedicine and incentivizing telemedicine,” he said.
This second Trump administration, for instance, “has not been supportive” of legislation passed by former President Joe Biden that aimed to help increase telemedicine access across the U.S, Benjamin said. Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure law, for instance, allocated money to expand broadband services in underserved communities and improve access to telemedicine services and equipment.
Last month, Trump ordered federal agencies to stop dispersing funds approved under the bipartisan infrastructure law. President Donald Trump’s federal funding freeze also impacts other tech-related grant programs like the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program, the Digital Equity Competitive Grant Program and the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program.
“I would anticipate that [the Trump administration] would be supportive of telemedicine efforts going forward,” Benjamin said, but “we will have to wait and see if they carve out that [IIJA] funding — and we hope that that funding doesn’t get clawed back.”
Another concern for state and local health centers is the future of the federal Telehealth Modernization Act, which passed last year but is set to expire next month unless Congress acts to extend it, said Amy Simmons Farber, associate vice president of communications and public relations at the National Association of Community Health Centers, in an email to Route Fifty.
The legislation extended pandemic-era telehealth flexibilities and has helped community health centers to continue delivering virtual care, particularly in rural areas where community health centers serve more than 10 million patients, she said.
Simmons pointed to a 2023 study, for instance, that found at federally-qualified health centers in Massachusetts, “the use of telehealth as part of chronic disease care may be associated with better care engagement for low-income patients with diabetes.”
Renewing the Telehealth Modernization Act could also help close Medicare reimbursement gaps that community health centers receive for virtual appointments and in-person visits, she said.
Telemedicine is an important tool for health centers to improve people’s health outcomes and mitigate disparities, Benjamin said, adding that “hopefully [the Trump administration] will recognize those differences and provide supplemental funding and support for states that want to beef up their telemedicine capacity.”
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