The Iowa Board of Medicine's recent guidance on telemedicine is at odds with a rule it passed last year, The Des Moines Register writes in an opinion piece. Telemedicine has been an important tool in the state, providing Iowans with health services they may not otherwise have, according to the editorial. Recently, the state's Board of Medicine crafted administrative rules providing telemedicine standards for all physicians.
However, that guidance is at odds with a rule passed by the board last year that imposes harsh requirements on Iowa doctors who use videoconferencing to dispense abortion-inducing drugs, according to the editorial. That rule is being challenged in court and requires the same physician who dispenses a drug to perform an in-person exam. Those rules "defy the very idea of telemedicine," and coupled with the new rule, create different sets of guidelines for doctors. Board members cannot have it both ways on telemedicine, according to the newspaper. Opinion piece