Page 2 State Telehealth Laws and Reimbursement Policies A Comprehensive Scan of the 50 States and District of Columbia

State Telehealth Laws and Medicaid

Program Policies

Introduction

The Center for Connected Health Policy’s (CCHP) third annual edition of “State Telehealth Laws and
Reimbursement Policies” offers policymakers, health advocates, and other interested health care
professionals the most current summary guide of telehealth-related policies, laws, and regulations for all
50 states and the District of Columbia. States continue to pursue their own unique set of telehealth
policies as more and more legislation is introduced each year. Some states have incorporated policies
into law, while others have addressed issues such as definition, reimbursement policies, licensure
requirements, and other important issues in their Medicaid Program Guidelines.

While this guide focuses primarily on Medicaid fee-for-service policies, information on managed care is
noted in the report if it was available. The report also indicates any particular areas where we were
unable to find information. Every effort was made to capture the most recent policy language in each
state as of January 2015. Recently passed legislation and regulation have also been included in this
version of the document with their effective date noted in the report. All of this information is also
available electronically in the form of an interactive map and search tool accessible on our national
website, cchpca.org. Consistent with previous years’ editions, the information will be continually updated,
as laws, regulations and administrative policies are constantly changing.

Telehealth Policy Trends

Although each state’s laws, regulations, and Medicaid program policies differ significantly, certain trends
are evident when examining the various policies. Live video Medicaid reimbursement, for example,
continues to far exceed reimbursement for store-and-forward and remote patient monitoring. However, in
recent months, and since the 50 state survey was first published in 2013, we have seen more states
begin to expand telehealth policies and attempt to address barriers to its use. A few significant findings
include:

• In comparison to forty-four states last year, currently forty-six states and Washington DC’s
Medicaid programs reimburse for some form of live video.
• Since July 2014, one state (South Dakota) has removed reimbursement for store-and-forward
from their Medicaid program, making it currently nine state Medicaid programs that offer some
reimbursement for store-and-forward (states that only reimbursed for tele-radiology are not
included in this count).
• Fourteen state Medicaid programs offer reimbursement for remote patient monitoring compared
to ten states at the time this report was first published in 2013.
• Three state Medicaid programs (Alaska, Minnesota and Mississippi) reimburse for all three.

How to Use this Report

Telehealth policies are organized into eleven categories that address the distinct issues of definition,
Medicaid reimbursement by type of service, licensing, and other related requirements. The first column
indicates whether policy has been codified into law and/or state regulation. The second column indicates