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Telehealth Task Force Eyes New Bills to Expand Mental Health Services

A telehealth task force in South Dakota will recommend three new bills for next year's Legislative session, all designed to improve access to mental health care throughout the state.

Source: ThinkStock

By Eric Wicklund

- A group of South Dakota lawmakers is recommending expanding the state’s telehealth laws to improve access to telemental health.

The Legislature’s group on leveraging telehealth and telemedicine, one of five task forces approved by lawmakers this past year to improve the state’s mental health resources, is putting forth three bills specifically targeting connected health.

“I don’t think it’s the total solution, but it’s an important one,” Terry Dosch, executive director of the South Dakota Council of Community Behavioral Health, said during a recent meeting of the task force – held on a teleconferencing platform. The session was covered by the Keloland Media Group.

With rising numbers of people in need of mental health services and a shortage of specialists able to provide them, South Dakota is one of many states, health systems and telehealth providers looking to expand access through virtual care.

To address that need, the task force will send three draft pieces of legislation in December to the Legislature’s Executive Board, which will decide what bills will be submitted when the Legislative session opens in January 2020.

One bill would set the parameters for telehealth, permitting interactive audio-video, asynchronous (store-and-forward) and remote patient monitoring platforms while banning phone, fax, text and mail as the sole method of telehealth contact. It would also define the originating site as “where a patient is located at the time health care services are delivered,” and enable providers to use telehealth to prescribe controlled substances to new patients, as long as certain conditions are met.

The second proposed bill would enable care providers to use telemedicine – specifically a real-time audio visual platform – to conduct a mental health examination of a patient detained or placed on an emergency intervention. It would also enable mobile crisis teams to use telemedicine to supervise certain patients.

The third proposed bill would expand the state’s resource information system – called the 211 services – to the entire state, giving residents on-demand access to “resources for a person in a crisis or disaster; resources for social services, human services, legal assistance, financial assistance, or for other related needs; and assistance for mental health, physical health, or substance abuse.”

The task force was also urged to seek recommendation for telehealth standards, tie any new regulations to existing state regulatory boards to ensure compliance, and ensure that any technology used be affordable and protect the patient’s privacy.

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