Lawmakers Renew Push to Make COVID-19 Telehealth Restrictions Lift Permanent

Sens. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and Roger Wicker, R-Miss., led refiling Thursday of the Creating Opportunities Now for Necessary and Effective Care Technologies (Connect) Act to make permanent a waiver of geographic restrictions on access to telehealth services, plus several other temporary rules changes allowing expanded use of the technology Congress enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Schatz and Wicker first proposed the permanent waiver in 2020 (see 2006150032). House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Doris Matsui and Rep. Mike Thompson, both California Democrats, filed the companion House version. President Joe Biden signed off last year on a temporary extension of the waiver as part of the FY 2022 omnibus appropriations package (see 2203100073). “While telehealth use has skyrocketed these last few years, our laws have not kept up,” Schatz said: “Telehealth is helping people in every part of the country get the care they need, and it’s here to stay.” Telehealth “is a revolutionary development in health care delivery,” Wicker said. “The internet put communications and commerce in the palm of our hand, and it is now doing the same for health care.” Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Communications Subcommittee ranking member John Thune, R-S.D, are among 58 co-sponsors of the Senate measure.