The Ehealth, Telehealth and Telemedicine Blog

Highlights of the 2012 American Telemedicine Association Conference

The American Telemedicine Association convention buzzed with excitement in San Jose last week. It was clear to many of us in attendance that this year is a “tipping-point” for the association as well as the telehealth movement. With the advances in broadband and usage of communication and internet technology since the ATA’s founding in 1993, [...]

ATA Sponsors Briefing for Members of Congress re: National Licensure — Jan 31st

You may have been wondering when this was going to happen, but recent events are making a sea-change toward national licensure more of an reality as our  lawmakers are steadily being drawn into the public eye.  On January 31st, there was a briefing for members of Congress outlining the problems related to our current system [...]

American Telemedicine Association Survey – Please Complete

Dear Colleagues: Broad deployment of telemedicine requires common approaches and uniform practices. For over ten years ATA has been developing practice guidelines for the delivery of safe and effective healthcare via telemedicine. These guidelines are developed in cooperation with leading practitioners, researchers, societies and vendors. Nine such guidelines have been formally approved by the ATA [...]

FREE Webinar, June 6th: 3 Reasons SKYPE May be RISKY to Your Practice & How to Remedy

Register for a FREE webinar entitled, “3 Reasons SKYPE can be RISKY to Your  Practice & How to Remedy.”  With HIPAA requiring compliance, licensed professionals can be caught in the crosshairs if a problem arises when opting for these free video services.  Traditional telehealth standards of care call for much more robust and IT-staff supervised [...]

Does Video Contact with Clients or Patients Require HIPAA Compliance?

If a US-based company isn’t claiming HIPAA compliance, my tendency is to recommend against using them for the delivery of telepsychiatry, telepsychology, online therapy or online counseling in the US, until they make claims for which they can be held accountable by our federal consumer protection agencies. That includes email, chat rooms, telephone or videoconferencing.

Telehealth & Telemedicine Reimbursement Resources

While Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement is available for telehealth and telemedicine, resources to help us access this information is not well organized or easily accessible online yet. I’ve compiled these sources, and am happy to post the ones I’ve found here, but please add to them by commenting below if you can.

What’s Your Mental Health Professional Association Doing to Support Responsible Internet-based Telehealth Practice?

1. Are you aware of any other statements, ethical decisions, announcements or other documents for independent practitioners seeking guidance for practice through the Internet as produced by any of the large US professional associations?

2. Do you live in a country other than the US, and have a professional association that has published such a document?

If you are aware of any such resources, please leave links or details in the comments section below.