Senate Committee Approves Telemedicine Grants
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Wednesday passed a bill (S 1775) that includes incentive grants for telemedicine programs for increasing health care services in rural areas, according to CongressDaily Markup Reports (Rich, CongressDaily Markup Reports, 10/29). The grants would be available through 2006 and would be available to state professional licensing boards to create and implement policies to help reduce the statutory and regulatory barriers to telemedicine (S 1775 text, 10/22). The bill would make changes to the Health Care Safety Net Amendments of 2002 -- such as reauthorizing and strengthening the federal health centers program and the National Health Service Corps -- and would establish the Healthy Communities Access Program to coordinate services for the uninsured and underinsured (CongressDaily Markup Reports, 10/29).
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