Telehealth and Medically Underserved and Advancement Act of 2006 - Amends title XVIII (Medicare) of the Social Security Act to: (1) increase the type of originating sites allowed to offer telehealth services, including skilled nursing facilities, assisted living facilities, and county or community health clinics; and (2) remove the requirement that such originating sites must be in rural areas.
Amends the Public Health Service Act to require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to convene a conference of state licensing boards, local telehealth projects, health care practitioners, and patient advocates to promote interstate licensure for telehealth projects.
Authorizes the Director of the Office for the Advancement of Telehealth to award grants to: (1) demonstrate how telehealth technologies can be used to expand access to, coordinate, and improve the quality of health care services, and to improve and expand the training of health care providers, the quality of health information available, and efforts to eliminate health care disparities; and (2) provide oral health services to patients who reside in rural areas.
Directs the Secretary to establish a Joint Working Group on Telehealth to: (1) identify, monitor, and coordinate federal telehealth projects, data sets, and programs in rural and urban areas; (2) analyze how telehealth systems are expanding access to health care services, education, and information; (3) analyze the clinical, educational, or administrative efficacy and cost-effectiveness of telehealth applications; (4) analyze the quality of the telehealth services delivered; (5) analyze how telehealth systems can advance the improve of health care quality and the elimination of health care disparities; (6) analyze the federal resources needed to accomplish the stated objectives of telehealth programs; and (7) make recommendations for coordinating federal and state efforts to increase access to health services, education, and information in rural and urban medically underserved areas.