Achieving Telehealth’s Potential: The Policy Landscape’s Impact on Specialty Care

February 23, 2023

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 first of three in a series, maped out the impact of our current physician licensure framework on the delivery of specialty care to patients through the patient, provider, and health system perspective.

Panelists
Welcome and moderator: Barak Richman, Bartlett Professor of Law and Business Administration, Duke University
Shannon MacDonald, Physician Investigator (Cl), Mass General Research Institute, Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology, Harvard Medical School, and Associate Radiation Oncologist Radiation Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital
Mei Wa Kwong, Executive Director, The Center for Connected Health Policy
Heidi Ross, Vice President, Policy and Regulatory Affairs, National Organization for Rare Disorders

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

[joedavis]

... Since doctors are so very often merely going through the motions, they might as well be allowed to do it through video or telephone.

[joedavis]

... And always keep in mind, that Hippocrates the father of Medicine, said that if you are not your own doctor, you are a fool.