Telemedicine FAQ

The Division of Medicaid and Medical Assistance (DMMA) is eliminating the current informed consent requirement and redefining patient consent as follows:

Consent is required to assure that the recipient is a willing participant in the telehealth delivered service and to assure that the recipient retains a voice in their treatment plan. The patient must be informed and given an opportunity to request an in-person assessment before receiving a telehealth assessment. Verbal consent is accepted, and written consent is no longer required. However, this consent must be documented in the patient’s record.

The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), responsible for enforcing certain regulations issued under HIPAA, has announced that it will exercise its enforcement discretion during the COVID-19 nationwide public health emergency. OCR will not impose penalties on providers for noncompliance when providers are engaged in good faith provision of telehealth.

A provider may use any non-public facing remote communication product that is available to communicate with patients. A provider may use a video chat application connecting the provider’s or patient’s phone or desktop computer in order to assess a greater number of patients while limiting the risk of infection of other persons who would be exposed from an in-person consultation.

Providers may use popular applications that allow for video chats, including Apple FaceTime, Facebook Messenger video chat, Google Hangouts video, or Skype, to provide telehealth without risk that OCR might seek to impose a penalty for noncompliance with HIPAA. However, Facebook Live, Twitch, TikTok, and similar video communication applications are public facing, and should not be used in the provision of telehealth by covered health care providers.