Charity Medical – Problems with State Lines

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Even nonprofit medical is stopped atthe state line. Even if the doctors in that state will not treatthese patients, they will also prevent doctors working for charitiesfrom treating these patients, if they are not licensed in that state. How pig headed these doctors have become? They will not treat thesepatients, and they are damn if they will allow anyone else to treatthem.
This is a reason for congressionallegislation that would make a doctor given a doctors license topractice medicine in one state, able to practice medicine in anystate or US territory. And, no – I am not saying if one stateallows a doctor to practice dentistry, that the next state will allowthe same doctor to practice oral surgery. This would only happen ifthe original state allowed both because the doctor qualified forboth.
This article in the Tennessean showswhat state lines prevent and actions of the medical boards withinthese states. This is one area, that for the greater good, needs afederal law to allow doctors to cross state lines. With the comingdoctor shortage, this will continue to be a problem. Telemedicine isalso hamstrung by these same shortsighted medical groups.
I am not a lawyer, but something needsto be done to make it possible for doctors to work across statelines. If nothing more than reciprocity between states and removingthe requirement of being physically present to apply to practice andreducing the fee requirement. Maybe a federal register can bemaintained of doctors practicing across state lines. This shouldalso apply to nurses, nurse practitioners (NP), and physicianassistants (PA).
Over 30 states have the law now that adoctor needs to physically see a patient before a prescription can bewritten. Read my blog here about this. This may need to be modifiedto allow for an examination by a nurse, NP (nurse practitioner), or PA (physician assistant) and then aprescription issued by the doctor after a video conference with thenurse, NP, or PA. This might also include a pharmacist. Fortelemedicine to work, medical groups will need to work together andnot cripple ideas that could save lives. As many situationscurrently exist, doctors are doing harm to patients by preventingthem being seen by nurses and others capable of using telemedicineand getting prescriptions to people in need.
If state medical boards and thedifferent medical organizations continue to block and cripple newmedical initiatives, the medical community will have no one butthemselves to blame when the backlash from the patient communityhappens. In some rural communities, people are already displeasedthat doctors cannot use telemedicine to assist them and in others,they are losing their doctors because hospitals either have boughtout a medical practice and closed it, or have hired the doctors awayto larger cities and bigger hospitals. This means longer traveltimes for the people in these areas to see a doctor. Some people donot have the resources or ability to travel these distances.