A great relief came to telemedicine companies when they won the lengthy battle against Texas Medical Board. Texas Governor Mr. Greg Abbott signed the legislation on 27th May. This signing of legislation put an end to the long on-going battle between the companies who were expanding the availability of the telemedicine in Texas, and the Texas Medical Board.
Telemedicine companies big win against Texas Medical Board!
Although the telemedicine companies won this battle, the medical board was obviously not wrong in fighting the battle. It can, however, be said that the medical board was on the wrong side of financial interests and history!
A loss over physician autonomy!
One has to clearly understand the fact that telemedicine, of course, offers a less expensive alternative when compared to traditional doctor’s visit; however, on the other hand, it leads to a potentially much lower quality of care. The Texas Medical Board doesn’t lose the battle on whether a telephone doctor visit is equivalent to traditional doctor visit when it comes to quality of care. However, they lost the battle over physician autonomy.
The major concern!
The major concern is the question that ‘Who employs to doctor on another side of the telemedicine visit?’ The telemedicine doctor could even be employed by anyone and under any economically efficient condition. So if this becomes a reality, then how does the physicians that are on Main Street will stay in business? And, that’s what worried the most to Texas Medical Board. The same goes well with the ‘mail-pharmacies’, leading to another major concern for the Texas Medical Board.
So keeping all this in mind, the Texas Medical Board in 2015 passed a rule wherein at least one face-to-face encounter was required so as to establish a patient/physician relationship. And, after this primary encounter, the next encounter can happen with the telemedicine. However, the newly signed legislation ends up this battle between both the parties.
Date: June 12, 2017