Trending in Telehealth highlights state legislative and regulatory developments that impact the healthcare providers, telehealth and digital health companies, pharmacists and technology companies that deliver and facilitate the delivery of virtual care.

Trending in the past week:

• Professional Practice Standards

A CLOSER LOOK

Finalized Legislation and Rulemaking

• Nevada finalized a rule that updates its physical therapy standards. Physical therapists may now provide services via telehealth in accordance with Nevada’s general telehealth statute, Nev. Rev. Stat. § 629.515.
  Legislation and Rulemaking Activity in Proposal Phase

Highlights:

• Texas proposed a rule that would amend Division of Workers’ Compensation regulations that set telehealth and telemedicine billing requirements for services provided to injured employees in the Texas workers’ compensation system. The proposed rule would add a definition for “teledentistry services” and would add Medicaid payment policies to the list of applicable payment policies that healthcare providers must use to bill for telemedicine, telehealth and teledentistry services.
• West Virginia’s Medical Imaging and Radiation Therapy Technology Board of Examiners proposed a rule that would clarify that telehealth practice is inapplicable to the performance of medical imaging and radiation therapy. This proposed rule comes in response to W.V. Code § 30-1-26, which requires all health boards to adopt rules governing telehealth.

Why it matters:

• States continue to refine and adopt professional practice standards for telehealth. Some states have recently adopted new or revised professional practice standards that vigorously regulate telehealth. As the latest Nevada and West Virginia rules demonstrate, regulation for certain health professions may be less robust and may simply clarify whether the profession is permitted to practice via telehealth.

Telehealth is an important development in care delivery, but the regulatory patchwork is complicated. The McDermott digital health team works alongside the industry’s leading providers, payors and technology innovators to help them enter new markets, break down barriers to delivering accessible care and mitigate enforcement risk through proactive compliance. 

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