This spring, Sen. Tom Udall (D-Utah) plans to introduce legislation that would streamline licensure portability for physicians, making it easier for them to practice telemedicine in multiple states, Government Health IT reports.
Background
Currently, physicians must apply for a separate license in each state where they practice telemedicine.
Jonathan Linkous, CEO of the American Telemedicine Association, said physician licensure has been a barrier to telemedicine because doctors cannot provide treatment remotely unless they have a license in the state where the patient is seeking care.
Legislation Details
The bill would create a comprehensive and interoperable database of credentialed telemedicine practitioners, according to Fern Goodhart, legislative assistant to Udall.
Information in the database only would need to be entered once and could include:
- Claims histories;
- Hospital privileges; and
- Criminal background checks.
Goodhart said, "You can think of it as a national practitioner database or unified provider database or a federation-based credential verification source on steroids with improvements" (Mosquera, Government Health IT, 2/2).