Health Law Advisor

We all know that telehealth is going mainstream.  The numbers speak for themselves.  A leading research firm predicts that 2.8 million patients worldwide used home-based remote monitoring devices in 2012—expected to increase to 9.4 million connections globally by 2017.  Another firm projects that the number of patients using telehealth services in the United States will grow to 1.3 million in 2017, up from 227,000 in 2012.  Even less rosy projections predict growth to 2 million patients worldwide by 2017.  The news is even better in subspecialties like telepsychiatry   that are ...

Many legal obstacles have long stood in the way of telehealth. There are licensure laws, prescribing laws, practice of medicine requirements, credentialing rules, insurance coverage issues, and concerns about privacy, among others.  These hurdles have until recently relegated telehealth to the most geographically remote corners of health care where the only means of obtaining medical care is by phone or computer connection to a provider hundreds of miles away.  But now, with physician shortages and the ubiquity of the smart phone, telehealth is beginning to show up all over the ...