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2023 SESSION

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SB 1157 Health insurance; coverage for audio-only telehealth services.

Introduced by: David W. Marsden | all patrons    ...    notes | add to my profiles

SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED:

Health insurance; coverage for audio-only telehealth services. Requires health insurers, health care subscription plans, and health maintenance organizations to provide coverage beginning January 1, 2024, for the cost of health care services provided through audio-only telehealth services, defined in the bill as counseling interventions designed to facilitate a patient's achievement of human development goals and remediate mental, emotional, or behavioral disorders and associated distresses that interfere with mental health and development by a mental health professional delivered to a patient via audio-only means when no other means of real-time two-way audio-visual or other telecommunications or electronic communications are available and operational to the patient or the patient does not have the capability to use such real-time two-way means of communication. The bill provides that "audio-only telehealth services" does not include counseling interventions delivered by a mental health professional while such mental health professional is operating or riding in a motor vehicle unless the patient is experiencing an acute mental health crisis. The bill requires that prescribing of controlled substances via audio-only telehealth services comply with state requirements for prescribing controlled substances and all applicable federal law.


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