Telemedicine Committee – August 28th

Telemedicine Committee – August 28th

Tonya Palone, Policy Analyst, from HHSC spoke on proposed changes to the HHSC rules regarding telemedicine in response to legislature. The two main issues for HHSC are:

1) Terminology is changing to align with Medicare, i.e., the term hub changes to distant and the term remote changes to patient site.
2) Expanding to allow for providers other than physicians, such as mental health, medication management, psycho therapy.

As a result of these HHSC changes, the Board will have to adopt new rules, specifically regarding issues like patient site versus remote site. Additionally, the rules defining supervisory requirements are currently it is stated in a broad sense. Due to the HHSC rules, the Board may need to provide more detail.

HHSC rules will be published for public comment on September 11th. (See: http://www.sos.state.tx.us/texreg). The public is encouraged to review the proposed rules and can provide public feedback on the rules. The goal of HHSC is to finalized the rules and enact them by April 2009.

Board staff recommends that Board wait until HHSC adopt their rules, however do not want to wait until April to make the changes. The Board staff may place this issue on the October Board meeting agenda. Board staff suggests that the Board review the proposed HHSC rules and make any changes to the Board rules at the February 2009 meeting.

My Comments: To be able to involve one’s self in telemedicine, one must be a licensed Texas physician. A few years ago, the Board did start to issue Telemedicine licenses. These are given to out-of-state doctors who practice via technology, but do not and cannot otherwise practice in Texas. The vast majority of these individuals are radiologist and pathologist at this time. As technology grows in this area, who knows how these field with grow. There is a growing need for PCPs in Texas. This is especially true to small towns across Texas who are increasingly having trouble finding and keeping doctors. Telemedicine may a solution to this problem.
If you are interested in the scope and limits of telemedicine, information can be found at Board rule 174. If you are interested in the licensing requirements for telemedicine, they can be found at Board rule 172.12. The rules can be found at the Board’s website. (www.tmb.state.tx.us).