It’s now been over a year since the COVID-19 pandemic was declared a public health emergency, ushering in monumental changes for telehealth regulation. If you’ve been following Health Law Scan, we hope our updates have provided some clarity to the everchanging regulatory healthcare framework and the legal issues that can vary across payers, across states, and even across countries.
Health Law Scan
Legal Insights and Perspectives for the Healthcare Industry
The US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and other federal regulators have grown increasingly concerned about the use of telehealth technologies by perpetrators of various fraud schemes. While this is in part due to the meteoric rise in use of telehealth services during the past year and the need to quickly formalize permanent policy around the technology, the federal government’s concern extends well before the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE).
In the most recent edition of our global telehealth series, we take a look at the United Kingdom’s telehealth expansion, discussing the UK National Health Services’ recently released guidance providing a set of best practice principles for third-party partners to follow. The LawFlash covers telehealth laws and regulations and the role of the EU General Data Protection Regulation, as well as looks forward to future changes and reform.
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has made the development and use of drug and device products to diagnose, treat, or prevent COVID-19 essential.
Telehealth is a highly regulated field and legal issues can vary across payers, across states, and even across countries. Our global healthcare industry team continues to highlight how regions around the world have quickly adapted to providing telehealth services following the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. In China, the Chinese government has been actively promoting internet-based medicine, even before the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the need for telehealth services.
DOJ recently announced a massive coordinated effort with other federal agencies to charge 345 defendants allegedly responsible for over $6 billion in fraud. DOJ, OIG, FBI, DEA, and various US Attorneys’ Offices in 51 federal districts teamed up to unveil charges against more than 100 doctors, nurses, and licensed clinical personnel.
We are pleased to announce that we are participating in three upcoming digital health events.
US President Donald Trump issued an executive order on August 3 that aims to expand telehealth access to Medicare beneficiaries beyond the coronavirus (COVID-19) public health emergency (PHE) period. The executive order focuses on rural healthcare providers in particular, noting the difficulties patients in rural areas face in obtaining accessible, high-quality healthcare services over the years.
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has brought a dramatic shift from in-person healthcare visits to telehealth services around the world, unveiling a new normal for providing healthcare services.
We are celebrating our 10th year of Technology May-rathon, our annual webinar series focusing on current technology issues, trends, and developments. This year, we have a full schedule of webinars with discussions on privacy and big data, global commerce, fintech, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, and more. Be sure to register for the many healthcare webinars our lawyers will be presenting on.