Maine Insurance Bureau clarifies new telehealth law
- July 31, 2024
- Posted by: Web workers
- Category: Workers Comp
Maine in June enacted legislation eliminating the distinction between telehealth services and telephonic services by medical providers, but the Maine Insurance Bureau last week issued a bulletin clarifying the new regulation.
Telehealth services have been authorized for at least a decade, the bureau said. As a result of?L.D. 791, however, telephonic services are considered a subset of telehealth, the bureau said in a statement Thursday.
“This does not mean that all phone calls between patients and providers are now considered ‘telehealth’ for purposes of provider reimbursement,” the department said in its bulletin.
“However, the phone can be a modality for ‘the delivery of health care services,’ to the extent consistent with other applicable laws, standards of practice and any rules enacted by the respective licensing boards.”
The law also states that coverage is required only when providers are acting within the scope of their license. It prohibits insurer-imposed restrictions on coverage for prescribing meds through telehealth that are more restrictive than they are for prescribing in person.
The law also expanded the definition of ‘telemonitoring’ as a subset of telehealth services to include information technology to remotely monitor a patient’s health electronically, wherever the patient is.
The measure also added a requirement that network adequacy is determined on the basis of the availability of in-person services.
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