New telemedicine law expands options but raises more unanswered questions
Q: What is telemedicine?
A: Telemedicine is a relatively new and increasingly popular alternative way to receive health care services that involves a virtual visit between a doctor and a patient. In recent months, the Oklahoma Legislature passed a new law designed to make telemedicine more available across the state; it also solidified language to define the service. As defined by Oklahoma law, telemedicine is the practice of health care delivery, diagnosis, consultation, evaluation and treatment, transfer of medical data or exchange of medical education information, by means of a twoway, real-time interactive communication between a patient and a physician with access to and reviewing the patient’s relevant clinical information prior to the telemedicine visit.
Q: What requirements must providers meet in order to treat Oklahoma patients via telemedicine?
A: The new law permits telemedicine visits, even including the initial contact between the physician and a patient in Oklahoma, so long as the provider meets a few requirements. For example, the physician must be licensed in Oklahoma (although the physician may be physically located in another state at the time of the telemedicine encounter). They must confirm with the patient the patient’s identity and physical location (the patient must be in Oklahoma at the time of the telemedicine encounter). And the physician must provide the patient with the physician’s identity and professional credentials. There are also requirements for the system the provider can use to conduct telemedicine. These requirements disqualify some encounters, including text messages, electronic mail and audio-only phone calls from counting as telemedicine.
Q: What restrictions does the new law create?
A: The new law does put some restrictions on telemedicine, especially in cases regarding opiates. It requires an initial face-to-face encounter between a patient and a physician before the physician can prescribe opiates, synthetic opiates, semisynthetic opiates, benzodiazepine or carisoprodol. However, an initial telemedicine encounter is sufficient for a physician to prescribe opioid antagonists or partial agonists. The law specifically permits medical or osteopathic doctors to provide telemedicine services but doesn’t address whether other types of practitioners, such as physician assistants or nurse practitioners, are able to as well. In short, the new Oklahoma law may help expand the availability of telemedicine across the state, but it also raises a few questions that need to be clarified.