Michael H. Cohen: Telemedicine Legal Issues

Hello. I’m Michael H. Cohen. I’m an attorney and I practice law in Beverly Hills, California.

I’d like to talk to you about telemedicine. Telemedicine is the medicine of the future. It’s rapidly emerging and the legal landscape is changing very fast. Many clinicians come to me because they want to jump into a telemedicine practice in order to get beyond their brick and mortar clinic.

One of the legal issues with telemedicine is that telemedicine typically is governed both by the state where the doctor or other clinician is located and the state where the patient is located. So if you’re a practitioner who wants to do telemedicine, it’s really important to consult expert legal counsel because you could be subject to the laws of different states, and the laws are a patchwork across the country.

Also, there are different rules depending on whether you are prescribing or simply diagnosing and treating. There are also legal questions as to what constitutes diagnosis and treatment, and whether you need to have a good faith in-person exam before taking on a patient.