COVID-19 Emergency Regulatory Changes
Why emergency regulatory changes were enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic and how they have affected telehealth services.
Q1: What are some of the emergency regulatory changes and updates that you're seeing that might most effectively direct physician practices?\
A1: So, starting at the very beginning, whether it was regulatory or at the actual provider or facility level, there were a lot of changes that had significant impact on the way providers were conducting their business. That could range from the cessation of doing elective procedures in ambulatory care settings. It could also be within hospitals that they wanted to make sure they didn't have a full patient population in case there was a surge. A lot of screenings, and other primary care type visits, were either completely delayed or moving to telehealth. And with all of these changes in practice, comes a greater risk of liability.
Q2: Has the regulatory landscape adapted to the proliferation of telehealth services since the pandemic began?
A2: You know, there have been some federal regulations and allow telehealth to be used more broadly and expand the scope of practice in terms of venue. But those have already been dialed back a bit, and it's really difficult to say whether that's going to have a long-term impact on sort of the breadth of how physicians practice,
HIPAA highlights: 2 disturbing class actions, OCR risk analysis enforcement
April 24th 2025Two class-action lawsuits targeting the University of Maryland Medical Center and the University of Kansas Health System for years-long cyberstalking and unauthorized access to protected health information spotlight massive HIPAA risk-analysis failures and underscore the urgent need for stronger health care cybersecurity safeguards.
