You’re depressed and struggling. You’ve been searching for a psychiatrist for months, and you’ve finally found the perfect fit. You’re getting the care you desperately need, and you’re doing it from the comfort of your own home. Things are looking up…but not for long. Soon enough, the government forces you to either find a new doctor or travel across the country to keep your existing care.
It’s not a hypothetical. In fact, state governments are blocking tens of millions of Americans from getting the care they need by erecting barriers to telehealth—a commonsense law that allows patients to access high-quality medical care from their homes using a computer, smartphone, or landline phone. It’s time for states to put patients first and remove these barriers, according to a new report from the Goldwater Institute and Cicero Institute. The report investigates six states’ approach to mental healthcare access through telehealth and provides recommendations for policymakers to ensure mental healthcare practitioners can easily practice across state lines.
Telehealth removes the geographic, financial, and physical obstacles that are associated with in-person care. During the COVID pandemic, many states implemented telehealth flexibilities. While some states turned those flexibilities into permanent legislation, most let them expire—leaving countless patients without the options they were counting on.
One major aspect of telehealth is the concept of interstate telehealth—or allowing out-of-state providers to practice medicine without having to jump through time-consuming hoops to obtain an in-state license. Enabling mental healthcare providers to easily practice across state lines (i.e. allowing a Georgia therapist to treat a Colorado patient virtually) improves accessibility, lowers appointment wait times, and increases the number of specialty providers. It also overcomes one of the most significant obstacles for many underserved populations: transportation—i.e., the ability, or lack thereof, to see a healthcare professional in the first place. Some researchers hypothesize that allowing patient to access virtual care has major benefits for communities that may mistrust in-person care, face transportation barriers, have difficulty taking time off from work, or struggle with physical infirmities that leave them homebound.
Unfortunately, very few states remove in-state licensing requirements, implement holistic telehealth registration, or have reduced their barriers to licensure to provide as many straightforward pathways as possible. Goldwater’s report examines six of these states: Florida, Colorado, Arizona, Delaware, Minnesota, and Alaska—each of which allows out-of-state mental health practitioners to treat patients virtually, but to varying extents.
As Goldwater’s report shows, allowing licensed practitioners to easily practice across state lines without requiring an in-state license has proven to be safe and effective. Despite this, most states either require an in-state license, or their interstate telehealth laws only apply to physicians and block many non-physician practitioners from practicing.
States should closely examine their telehealth laws to ensure greater access to mental healthcare through telehealth. After all, mental health professionals who are licensed and in good standing should be able to help patients in desperate need of care.
You can read the report here.
