The latest Texas Medical Board ruling, adopted at an April 10 meeting and due to take effect on June 3, makes it harder to offer telehealth services in the state. The amended law prohibits “questions and answers exchanged through e-mail, electronic text, or chat or telephonic evaluation of or consultation with a patient” until the doctor and patient have established a face-to-face relationship.
Dallas-based Teladoc has been fighting legislators for four years now, and they are obviously not happy with the ruling.
“Unfortunately, the Texas Medical Board’s decision to adopt a new rule takes away Texans’ access to a safe, affordable and convenient healthcare option that many have depended upon for more than a decade,” Teladoc CEO Jason Gorevic wrote in a letter. “As Texas’ population booms, health care expenses climb, and the shortage of primary care physicians grows, telehealth is a solution for patients dealing with common, non-emergency issues. This rule change only serves to intensify these problems without providing any benefit to Texans.”
Teladoc reportedly does 90% of its business by phone, and says an estimated 2.4 million Texans will lose access to healthcare services through the rule.
Also not liking the ruling is the American Telemedicine Association. Here’s what the organization’s CEO Jonathan Linkous wrote in a letter to the board:
Most of the proposal takes the board deeper into an overly prescriptive, complicated and convoluted morass regulating a physician’s use of telemedicine tools. Such policies can only lead to limiting patient access, increasing costs and decreasing the quality of care for the residents of Texas. All healthcare students are taught primum non nocere, ‘First, do no harm.’ We are concerned that the proposed policies, although well intentioned, will violate that principle.
On the other hand, the Texas Medical Association supports the law, saying it “supports the use of telemedicine that can provide safe, high-quality, timely care, (but safeguards are needed) to protect patients and ensure telemedicine complements the efforts of local health care providers.”
[Via: mHealthNews]