Introduction
Telehealth is widely viewed as a cost-effective strategy to increase access to health care services, address workforce shortages and reach patients in rural and underserved areas.
While the state telehealth policy landscape was quickly evolving prior to COVID-19, the pandemic led to a significant increase in telehealth use as well as numerous policy changes. With this rapid reliance on telehealth by both providers and patients, state lawmakers are evaluating telehealth laws and regulations and exploring ways to effectively leverage virtual care moving forward.
This toolkit contains a series of briefs covering key topics, opportunities and challenges related to telehealth policy. When used as a combined series, these briefs provide both an overview and introduction to state telehealth roles and includes a variety of state legislative actions on several key policy areas.