Natural State News

Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) and John Boozman (R-Arkansas) presented the Creating Opportunities Now for Necessary and Effective Care Technology for Health Act (CONNECT), pushing forth efforts to reform and improve telehealth services.  

"Eliminating certain restrictions for telehealth services allows Arkansans greater access to healthcare without traveling long distances. Our bill will keep these services in place even after the public health emergency expires," Cotton wrote in a Facebook post.

The Connect for Act bill received the support over more than 150 organizations initially introduced five years ago, including the AARP, America’s Essential Hospitals, American College of Emergency Physicians, American Hospital Association, American Heart Association, American Medical Association, American Medical Group Association, American Nurses Association, American Telemedicine Association, Children’s National Hospital, eHealth Initiative, among many others.

The initiative will enforce the removal of telehealth services, and help improve and expand related source websites. Health centers and clinics would be granted permission to provide telehealth services amid the pandemic, grant the Secretary of Health and Human Services discard telehealth restrictions, but allow them to implement them amid a public health crisis. It will also push forth further research to examine how telehealth has performed during the pandemic.

“Telehealth was already a promising health care delivery option, but it quickly became essential amid the pandemic. Now, we must ensure it is widely accessible in the long term in order to more readily meet patients’ needs and give providers the ability to offer care to more Americans. Making these changes permanent and better understanding how to utilize this revolutionary tool is both common sense and profoundly important,” Boozman said.