Congress needs to step up and pass legislation that would eliminate barriers to telemedicine and ensure that patients have remote access to expert physicians in other states and areas of the country, writes Shirley Svorny, Ph.D., professor of economics at California State University, Northridge, and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.
Congress can pass legislation that would define where a physician practices medicine as the location of the physician--rather than the location of the patient. With that change in place, physicians would only need to be licensed in the state they call home and could provide telemedicine services to patients anywhere around the country, says Svorny in a Wall Street Journal commentary.
“With one simple change that would not cost taxpayers a dime, Congress could create a national market for healthcare, and allow the telemedicine revolution to increase access to quality health care while lowering its cost,” she writes. “Not acting would deny American consumers a healthcare windfall.”
Congress has the power to make this change through the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, writes Svorny. The benefit: Expanded access to quality healthcare for patients who could pursue the medical expert of their choice, without the need to travel to the physician for an in-person consultation.
This effort to change national policy follows on the heels of legislatures in Louisiana and New York to remove barriers to care in telemedicine. The bill passed in the Louisiana’s state senate would allow doctors who aren’t located in the state and have access to a patient’s records to provide a telemedicine-based visit--even if the doctor had not met the patient in person previously. The bill introduced to the New York legislature requires private insurance companies to pay for telemedicine visits at the same rate as in-person visits, as previously reported by FierceHealthcare.
It’s projected that telehealth visits will grow to 7 million in 2018. That’s largely driven by patient preferences, which are having a profound impact on the adoption of telemedicine technologies in many practices.
- read the commentary