A Closer Look at States’ Telehealth Regulations
by Jinghong Chen
The telehealth boom caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has led policymakers to make an array of changes to telehealth regulation and payment structure. As of February 2021, 43 states and Washington D.C. have a law addressing commercial health plan coverage of telehealth services, according to Foley & Lardner’s 2021 50 State Survey of Telehealth Commercial Insurance Laws. Still, only 22 states maintain laws expressly addressing payment and reimbursement rates for telehealth, with 14 of them offering reimbursement parity relative to in person clinical care. In addition, the survey reports that coverage of store-and-forward telehealth and remote patient monitoring services has grown.