Sean McBride: We’ve started a legal campaign to break down state telehealth licensure restrictions

Sean McBride, radiation oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, shared a post by Caleb Trotter, lawyer at Pacific Legal, on X/Twitter, adding:

”Today we’ve started a legal campaign to break down state telehealth licensure restrictions. The fact that MD specialists, already licensed in their home state, must also obtain full licensure in every state where their potential patients reside violates the US Constitution.

These unconstitutional actions limit patient access to specialty care, undermining their fundamental rights as well.

Efforts by state medical boards to restrict out of state MDs, licensed in good standing in their own states, runs afoul of the dormant commerce clause, privileges and immunities clause, 1st and 14th amendments.

What makes these telehealth restrictions particularly odious is the fact that all material requirements for medical licensure are the same between US states.

DE, FL, and AZ have shown us a better way with simple registries that don’t require nearly the burden or cost of full licensure.

Patients, no matter their state, deserve access to the expertise of all American physicians wherever those physicians are located. And our constitution will not countenance protectionist impulses impeding these rights of its citizens.

Ultimately, eliminating barriers to telehealth will not only open up access but also competition and, combined with other policies, help to bring down cost.

Pediatric radiation oncologist Shannon M MacDonald and one of her patients are brave enough to go to court to vindicate their rights. If they succeed, we’ll owe a substantial debt of gratitude to them for helping to make the American medical system more fair.

Blake Landro …for tolerating long nights of my musings on this :).”

Quoting Caleb Trotter’s post:

”New lawsuit: Since the pandemic ended, states have reverted to old rules restricting telehealth even though the pandemic proved telehealth’s value. For patients needing specialty care for rare cancers, the rules are especially problematic when their doctors are out of state.

Today, we’ve sued New Jersey’s medical board on behalf of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania physician-specialists and their patients in New Jersey. Restricting access to specialty care benefits no one, is potentially deadly, and violates the Constitution.

Seriously, these rules are harmful and burdensome. And don’t just take my word for it, here’s the story of our teenage client, J.A.

And these harmful telehealth rules are also prevalent across the country.”

Source: Sean McBride/X and Caleb Trotter/X