Peach Tree Times

The Georgia House and Senate recently passed legislation revising the Georgia Telehealth Act in order to provide clearer definitions and enable doctors and patients to administer and receive medical treatments from home.

Georgia House Bill 307 (GA HB 307), will allow medical professionals to deliver telehealth services from their homes and patients to receive telemedicine services from their homes, schools and places of employment.

According to Josh Archambault, former director of the Center for Health Care Solutions, telehealth provides a cost-effective and accessible alternative to traditional doctors' offices, particularly for physically challenged patients unable to travel.

"Telehealth can be a game-changer for post-stroke care and for treatments for physically disabling and treatment-intensive conditions," Archambault wrote in the Washington Examiner. "Yet, for other services, the evidence of better outcomes is far less certain.

Additionally, Archambault maintains that telehealth is a viable option to in-person consultations as long as politicians avoid mandating coverage and payment parity, which would raise fees and make telemedicine less accessible to the most vulnerable.

"These mandates will slow innovation as most new telehealth services are being paid for by each appointment," Archambault said. "Which means that new patient-centered care models such as team-based care will not happen because payers will be mandated to pay just one way. "

Archambault also recommended that Congress establish some regulations for telehealth and telemedicine that would facilitate cross-state access to health providers without incurring any obligations.

"Ten years from now, we will be looking back wondering why spending has gone up yet again without a universal benefit being realized for patients," Archambault said. "To do this right, Congress should adopt a telehealth and telemedicine framework that allows providers of all kinds to utilize these services and allows easy access across state lines without any mandates."

According to the Georgia Department of Public Health, virtual care in Georgia is among the most comprehensive in the country, reaching all 159 counties. This broad network enables the Health Department to assist rural and underserved communities.

This aid is made available through video conferencing and the shipment of medications.

The Georgia Partnership for TeleHealth Response (GPT) currently employs more than 100 professionals in 40 different medical disciplines, according to medical research site Perspectives in Health Information Management, which also stated that such broad spectrum of medical competence also provides a cost-effective response to rural Georgia's doctor shortages. In addition to offering wound care and psychiatry services, Telehealth services are mostly used for specialist treatment and medical training.

According to the American Medical Association (AMA), permitting out-of-state physicians to treat patients via telemedicine may be vital in emergencies. The AMA also stated that treatment across state lines helps border-state patients and out-of-town college students receive consistent care.

Additionally, the New England Journal of Medicine determined that the quick expansion of telehealth during last year's COVID-19 outbreak, which frequently crossed state lines, should be viewed as a "silver lining of the pandemic."

The authors of the journal, Ateev Mehrotra, M.D.; Alok Nimgaonkar, B.A.; and Barak Richman, J.D., Ph.D., also noted that telemedicine across state borders should be fostered by both the federal and state governments — with the federal government mandating reciprocity in Telehealth licensure for Medicare and the states mandating reciprocity in other healthcare measures.