According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, telemedicine is the provision of clinical services to patients by doctors from a distance via electronic communications. But the definition of telemedicine differs from one state to another

What is not telemedicine?

Any service that constitutes telemedicine or telemedicine is subject to national, state and accreditation requirements. If the service does not meet the requirements then it should not be considered as telemedicine.

Recent Telemedicine trends

Telemedicine is responsible for the transformation of health care and how it’s delivered and monitored, allowing healthcare to be available anywhere at any time either simultaneously or non-simultaneously. Historically, non- simultaneous telemedicine was the most common arrangement. This involved the transmission of a patient’s medical information from where their site to the doctors site without the patient’s presence. This occurred mostly in situations of time differences. More recently, a significant upsurge has been noted in the arrangement between tele-ICU, telestroke and tele psychiatry services. The resurgent of telemedicine has been attributed to the 2011 passing of the much awaited ruling that advocates for a more flexible process in licensing telemedicine practitioners. Also the partnership growth between telemedicine doctors has seen the rise of telemedicine.

The adoption of the Model policy on April 26, 2014 for the appropriate use of Telemedicine technologies while practicing medicine, not only provided guidance to doctors on how to use telemedicine technologies but also was an opportunity for individuals and institutions who wanted their applications to be marketed and used in the telemedicine field.

Common legal issues in Telemedicine Services

As more individuals and institutions develop technology to support telemedicine services and more providers use telemedicine, oversight and regulation of telemedicine by state medical boards and regulatory agencies continue to increase. Some of the common legal issues that arise include the following:

• Reimbursement: Remains to be a barrier as its limited and requires face-to face contact between the patient and provider

• Fraud and abuse: Any business arrangements done by the practitioners should be structured in a manner it doesn’t go against federal laws, including the Anti-Kickback statute and the stark law.
• Medical staff Bylaws: Health care providers who rely on information from distant telemedicine institutions to accredit their practitioners must review and revise their medical staff laws and policies to include granting rights to distant based doctors, and a procedure to include for applying the criteria to those practitioners.

Conclusion

Telemedicine is an exciting area of health care that opens the door to greater access, greater efficiency, and more effective health care delivery. Telemedicine attorneys play an important role in allowing telemedicine practitioners get licensed and allowed to perform their duties remotely from their work stations providing quality standards of healthcare. Telemedicine attorneys help their clients in submitting the request before the authorizing body.