Achieving Telehealth’s Potential: The State Policy Landscape for Interstate Telehealth Practices
Online viewing
Watch the fully captioned event recording.
Event Description
Telehealth has been an invaluable tool for preserving health care access during the pandemic. Early in the pandemic, policymakers on the federal and state level moved with remarkable speed and implemented a series of temporary changes to promote telehealth, including expanding reimbursement and modifying licensure requirements. In response, telemedicine use skyrocketed, and both providers and patients have expressed a strong preference to maintain telemedicine as a staple of healthcare delivery. However, most of these temporary regulatory changes will be rolled back after the public health emergency expires. This has prompted an ongoing debate at both the state and federal level on which of these changes should be permanent.
Physician licensure is a particular focus of debate. Prior to the pandemic, most states required a physician to be licensed in the state in which the patient is located, and reinstating this standard—which was among those relaxed during the COVID-19 crisis—will be a major deterrent to interstate telehealth use. Patients will have to drive across state lines to have virtual consults with specialized experts, and providers will be dissuaded from developing truly national telehealth practices.
This event, the final of three in a series, explored some of the state leadership, challenges, and opportunities to build interstate telehealth practices.
Panelists
- Welcome and moderator: Ateev Mehrotra, Professor of Health Care Policy, Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School and Associate Professor of Medicine and Hospitalist, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
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Shannon Dowler, MD, FAAFP, CPE, Chief Medical Officer, North Carolina Medicaid and Assistant Secretary for Health Access, NC Dept. of Health and Human Services
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Dan Logsdon, Director, National Center for Interstate Compacts, The National Center for Interstate Compacts (NCIC)
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Lisa Robin, Chief Advocacy Officer, Federation of State Medical Boards
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Hemi Tewarson, President & Executive Director, National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP)
This event is sponsored by the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School. Supported by The Commonwealth Fund, a national, private foundation based in New York City that supports independent research on health care issues and makes grants to improve health care practice and policy. The views presented here are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Commonwealth Fund, its directors, officers, or staff