Telemedicine is a growing sector in medical practices, but the regulations around it are still developing.
There are currently 200 telemedicine networks and 3,500 service sites in the U.S., and more than half of all U.S. hospitals use some sort of telehealth service, according to the American Telemedicine Association. Many states are still legalizing its use as a medical treatment option, and the legal disagreements surrounding it will follow.
However, to avoid the legal tangles, here are four pointers from the American Medical Association State Legislative Strategy Conference on the potential liabilities of telemedicine.
1. Define the minimum requirements to establish the doctor-patient relationship. The AMA sets several principles for telemedicine regarding the physician's duty to the patient and vice versa. The organization specifies that a relationship must exist prior to a telemedicine consultation, established through a face-to-face examination or a consultation with another physician who has an ongoing relationship with the patient. The provider should determine ahead of time what needs to be included in a doctor-patient relationship before telemedicine consultations occur.
2. Determine who owns the data available to both patients and physicians. More and more patients are using wearable medical technology such as Fitbit and Jawbone to collect data. However, it is not always clear who own the data and who is responsible for monitoring and interpreting it in the context of the patient's medical history. The AMA suggests outlining the responsibility of the doctor and patient in regards to what physicians are required to do with the data patients collect and submit.
3. Require medical liability carriers to include telemedicine and data-related risks in their policies. Because telemedicine is fairly new, its legal framework is still somewhat porous. For example, liability risks could broach into privacy and security, reimbursement, deceptive trade practices, wrongful data collections, licensure, credentialing and others, according to the AMA. Including clauses in a practice's legal policies to protect telemedicine and explicitly state what is required could protect a provider during a lawsuit.
4. Know the state's telemedicine licensure laws. Every state has different regulations regarding telemedicine, whether it is eligible for Medicaid billing and what technologies are included. The AMA's principles call for physicians to maintain proper licensure in their own states and to be aware of the forthcoming legislation regarding telemedicine regulation.