Rural and Frontier Telehealth Expansion Act

II 117TH CONGRESS 1ST SESSION S. 2197 To amend title XIX of the Social Security Act to increase the Federal medical assistance percentage for States that provide Medicaid coverage for telehealth services. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES JUNE 23, 2021 Ms. ROSEN (for herself, Mr. SULLIVAN, Mr. TESTER, Mrs. CAPITO, Mr. LUJA´N, and Ms. MURKOWSKI) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance A BILL To amend title XIX of the Social Security Act to increase the Federal medical assistance percentage for States that provide Medicaid coverage for telehealth services. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa- 1 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Rural and Frontier 4 Telehealth Expansion Act’’. 5 VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:03 Jul 02, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S2197.IS S2197 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 2 •S 2197 IS SEC. 2. INCREASED FMAP FOR STATES PROVIDING MED- 1 ICAID COVERAGE FOR TELEHEALTH SERV- 2 ICES. 3 Section 1905(b) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 4 1396d(b)) is amended, in the first sentence— 5 (1) by striking ‘‘and (5)’’ and inserting ‘‘(5)’’; 6 and 7 (2) by inserting ‘‘, and (6) in the case of a fron- 8 tier State (as defined in section 9 1886(d)(3)(E)(iii)(II)) or a State where less than 90 10 percent of the total population has access to fixed 11 terrestrial broadband service with at least 25 mega- 12 bits per second (Mbps) download speed and 3 Mbps 13 upload speed (according to the most recently avail- 14 able annual Broadband Deployment Report of the 15 Federal Communications Commission) that, as de- 16 termined by the Secretary, provides medical assist- 17 ance for telehealth services (including audio-only 18 telehealth services) for a majority of the services for 19 which medical assistance is available under the State 20 plan (or a waiver of such plan) and for which tele- 21 health is appropriate and provides such services at 22 a level that is not less than the level at which the 23 State provided such services on January 1, 2021, 24 the Federal medical assistance percentage, as deter- 25 mined under this subsection and subsection (y), shall 26 VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:03 Jul 02, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S2197.IS S2197 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 3 •S 2197 IS be increased by 5 percentage points with respect to 1 medical assistance for telehealth services’’ before the 2 period. 3 Æ VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:03 Jul 02, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6301 E:\BILLS\S2197.IS S2197 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS