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Telemedicine in itself covers various practice areas for health care attorneys, which include payment and reimbursement, peer review, fraud and abuse, privacy, credentialing and privileging, consent, regulatory compliance, and license acquisition. Health care attorneys need to comprehend telemedicine and its multi-faceted regulatory framework otherwise they will not be able to serve the expanding area better. Telemedicineattorneys.com will help you and your practice navigate with ease this seemingly complicated area of telemedicine law.

Telemedicine has no simple definition but is rather regarded as a part of telehealth that entails the provision of clinical services to patients over a distance using electronic communications. In some states telemedicine and telehealth are treated as one thing. Furthermore, certain states define telehealth and telemedicine based on the purpose of specific health care regulation that regards the various concerns that include license and reimbursement. To assess what is and what is not telemedicine or telehealth, the federal or state law applicable is evaluated.

Understand Legal Issues in Telemedicine

The increase in the number of telemedicine providers and entrepreneurs has captured the attention of the telemedicine state medical boards and state and federal regulatory agencies. Therefore telemedicine providers or entrepreneurs should properly understand the various legal issues that regulate telemedicine services. Here are some of them:

1. Reimbursement-?This is a major challenge in telemedicine. Medicare reimbursement for providers in telemedicine usually requires a face-to-face encounter between the provider and the patient, with only some few exceptions for certain telemedicine services offered legally in remote locations where health care professionals are few. Medicare reimbursement laws differ widely for various states and only a few states have enacted laws that recognize or approve reimbursement by commercial insurers for specific telemedicine services. As a provider you should scrutinize reimbursement policies and regulations applicable to your area.
2. Credentialing and Privileging- Irrespective of the advancement in telemedicine, all health providers are liable for the care they give to patients. According to CMS final law that was effective as from 5^th July 2011, health organizations are allowed to rely on credentialing and privileging decisions made by distant-site hospitals or any other information given by distant-site telemedicine entities with respect to distant-site telemedicine practitioners as long as they meet the stipulated conditions.
3. Patient Privacy- Privacy of the patient in any medical practice is important and telemedicine is no exception. Various federal laws and regulations such as Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act regulate how patient information is used by health practitioners. Other laws and regulations also apply to telemedicine. All telemedicine practitioners and entrepreneurs are required to understand all these laws and regulations so as to avoid any breach.
4. Medical Staff Bylaws- Those health organizations that rely on information from distant-site hospitals or any telemedicine entity to grant privileges and credentials to a telemedicine practitioner are required to review and revise their medical staff bylaws so as to factor in the credentialing and privileging of the distant-site practitioner.
5. Other laws and regulations- Some other laws that apply to telemedicine include Fraud and Abuse laws, Peer Review laws, and many others. As a practitioner you should understand the laws that apply to your region before undertaking any telemedicine practice.

Our Telemedicineattorneys.com professional and experienced attorneys will take you through all these laws and guide you so as to avoid violating the telemedicine laws.

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