U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, is among a bipartisan list of lawmakers in Washington who, once again, is hoping to get the Telehealth Modernization Act passed. 

The proposal, which has been introduced before and was first sponsored by Schatz, seeks to ensure that telehealth services are available to those who need them and that they are covered for Medicare recipients.

Supporters of the proposal argue that those who live in more rural areas and the elderly, two groups they said can have a harder time accessing in-person medical services, need telehealth options in order to get the best care possible. 

“Telehealth has been a critical lifeline for millions of patients who need care during this pandemic. Now we need to make sure that the emergency expansions of telehealth coverage for Medicare beneficiaries are made permanent,” Schatz said of the legislation in early 2021. “This new bill works hand in hand with the CONNECT for Health Act by removing unnecessary barriers in Medicare and making it easier to keep using telehealth moving forward.”

The current push to pass the Telehealth Modernization Act has resurfaced, according to supporters, because health care providers are sounding the alarm and report that they are seeing things to go back to the way they were before the pandemic. 

“There are regulations around how [telehealth] can be done, from where and how it’s paid for … it improved during the COVID health crisis, because the barriers were just taken away, because we had to do it. But what we want to make sure is that we preserve all the benefits,” said Dr. Matthew Libby, the Chief Clinical Operations Officer of Outer Cape Health Services in Massachusetts. Libby told Spectrum News that Massachusetts is among the states where telehealth services have proven to be a game-changer for patients.

“COVID really was a catalyst that forced us to open up a lot more access to people who couldn’t come in for infection reasons, but there are reasons people can’t access care that go well beyond infection risk,” said Libby.

Telehealth services, which allow patients to seek treatment without physically going to a doctor’s office, were available pre-pandemic but not to the extent that they are now. Several health experts who spoke with Spectrum News said that one of major reason why telehealth services hadn’t expanded sooner was because of Medicare restrictions.

The Telehealth Modernization Act seeks to make two permanent changes to those restrictions to ensure “that patients can access telehealth anywhere by permanently removing Medicare’s so-called “geographic and originating site” restrictions, which required both that the patient live in a rural area and use telehealth at a doctor’s office or certain other clinical sites” and protects “access to telehealth for patients in rural areas.”

Maine is another state where constituents stand to benefit if the legislation is passed and both of the state’s U.S. Senators support the proposal. 

“We found that telehealth actually was a very successful means for delivering a number of the services that we need to keep our populations healthy and safe,” said Katie Harris, the Vice President of Government Affairs at MaineHealth. MaineHealth is an integrated health system comprising eight local hospital systems, a comprehensive behavioral health care network in Maine. 

Harris told Spectrum News that while many of the legislators who support the measure come from states with a significant amount of rural territory and elderly constituents, that she believes the changes outlined in the Telehealth Modernization Act would benefit a much larger group of people. 

“Telehealth has been incredibly successful in inner cities, as well as in rural areas. It’s been providing a convenience factor for families that are very busy, that have a hard time making it to physician offices and other places to receive care. So it eliminates the need for transportation, in many instances. So, I believe that this legislation will have not just bipartisan support, but universal support across the nation,” Harris said. 

Besides Sen. Schatz, the legislation was introduced by Sens. Tim Scott and Jeanne Shaheen and was also co-sponsored by Sens. Marsha Blackburn, Roger Marshall, Jon Tester, Roger Wicker, Ben Sasse, Tina Smith, Dan Sullivan, Raphael Warnock, Lisa Murkowski, Kyrsten Sinema, Cynthia Lummis, Shelley Moore Capito, John Boozman and Todd Young.