Effort Aims To Protect Patients In Telemedicine Practices

If a patient in Wyoming has a complaint about a doctor in Colorado he is seeing via teleconference, it's unclear which state's medical licensing board would investigate. Kevin Bohnenblust, an attorney and the executive director of the Wyoming Board of Medicine, calls clarifying telemedicine and mobility of license issues “the next revolution in medical licensing.”

The Federation of State Medical Boards is working with HHS' Health Resources and Services Administration on license portability issues (PDF) and to develop ways to protect the public while not standing in the way of the multistate practice of medicine.

“In the old-school way, a patient would see a physician physically in a location where the physician was licensed,” Bohnenblust said. But, for more and more Wyoming residents, a visit to the doctor's office involves meeting with a physician in Denver over the telephone or via teleconference...