Make TeleMedicine Permanent
19th October 2021
Akex Tabarrok, a Real Economist, lays it out.
One of the silver linings of the pandemic was the ability to see a doctor and be prescribed medicine online. I used telemedicine multiple times during the pandemic and it was great–telemedicine saved me at least an hour each visit and I think my medical care was as good as if I had been in person. I already knew I had poison ivy! No need for the doctor to get it also.
Telemedicine has been possible for a long time. What allowed it to take off during the pandemic wasn’t new technology but deregulation. HIPAA rules, for example, were waived for good faith use of standard communication technologies such as Zoom and Facetime even though these would ordinarily have been prohibited.
Once again, government is the problem, not the solution.