A physician delivering care via telemedicine should be licensed in the state where the patient is located and the same standards of care that apply to traditional healthcare settings should apply to telemedicine, according to policies approved by the American Medical Association House of Delegates at its annual meeting this week in Chicago.
The policies were included as recommendations in a report (PDF) by the AMA Council on Medical Service. The contention that the point of care is the patient's location and not their doctor's matches a similar policy passed recently by the Federation of State Medical Boards. That policy had been criticized as slowing the spread of telemedicine by requiring physicians to go through multiple cumbersome and expensive state license-application processes.