42 U.S.C. § 254c–16 — Mental health services delivered via telehealth

(a) Definitions. (1) "Eligible entity" means a public or nonprofit telehealth provider network that includes mental health services from qualified mental health providers. (2) "Qualified mental health professionals" means mental health providers reimbursed under Medicare (title XVIII of the Social Security Act) who have extra training treating mental illness in children and adolescents, or extra training treating mental illness in elderly people. (3) "Special populations" means two separate groups: (A) children and adolescents in rural or urban areas underserved for mental health; and (B) elderly people in long-term care facilities in rural or urban areas underserved for mental health. (4) "Telehealth" means using electronic information and telecommunications technology to support health care, patient and provider education, public health, and health administration over a distance. (b) Program. (1) The Secretary, through the Director of the Office for the Advancement of Telehealth at HRSA, must award grants to eligible entities to run demonstration projects. These projects deliver mental health services and mental-illness education remotely, through telehealth, by qualified mental health professionals, to the special populations. (2) The Secretary must award these grants so that both groups — children and adolescents, and elderly long-term-care residents — are served fairly. (c) Use of funds. (1) A grantee must use the money: for the children and adolescents group, to provide remote mental health services (including diagnosis and treatment) by qualified professionals using telehealth, and to work with local public health agencies to deliver that care; and for the elderly long-term-care group, to do the same inside long-term care facilities. (2) A grantee may also use the money to pay telecommunications costs and to pay qualified mental health professionals a reasonable amount, set by the Secretary, for their services. (3) A grantee may not use the money to buy or install transmission equipment — except equipment the mental health professionals actually use to deliver telehealth under the project — or to build on or acquire real property. (d) The Secretary must spread these grants as evenly as possible across the country's geographic regions. (e) An entity that wants a grant must apply to the Secretary in the form, manner, and with the information the Secretary reasonably requires. (f) No later than 4 years after October 26, 2002, the Secretary must send Congress's relevant committees a report evaluating what the grants funded. (g) Congress authorized $20,000,000 for fiscal year 2002, and whatever sums are necessary for fiscal years 2003 through 2006.