The ongoing wildfires in Los Angeles County are straining local healthcare resources as physicians and other providers care for patients who were directly injured in the fires and/or emotionally traumatized from the disaster, as well as displaced residents who need ongoing medical care. Local medical clinics, physician offices, and other healthcare facilities have been either destroyed in the fires or closed due to lack of access. Since the wildfires, several important temporary changes to laws and regulations at both the federal and state levels have been made to facilitate health care for those affected by the fires. On January 10th...
Dobbs Update December 2024 – Out of State Referrals in Idaho
On 12/4/24 a federal court upheld an injunction protecting Idaho physicians from prosecution for referring patients outside the state for abortions. Under Idaho law in the wake of the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision, it is illegal for physicians to assist patients in obtaining a prohibited abortion. In a leaked March 2023 letter, the state’s Attorney General opined that this would also include referring patients to providers in other states for the purposes of obtaining an abortion, indicating that physicians would be criminally charged for out-of-state referrals. The Attorney General reportedly withdrew the opinion shortly after it was...
DEA Extends Covid-19 Telehealth Prescribing Flexibilities for Another Year.
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in concert with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is issuing a third extension of telemedicine flexibilities for the prescribing of controlled medications, through December 31, 2025. A DEA-registered practitioner can prescribe a schedule II-V controlled substance to a patient using telemedicine without the need for an in-person medical evaluation, as long as the prescription(s) are for a legitimate medical need, and within the course and scope of the prescriber’s medical practice. As you may recall, the DEA extended the COVID flexibilities through 2024 while it worked on a revised set of rules, which were to...
DEA Likely to Further Extend Flexibilities on Controlled Substances and Telehealth Prescribing Beyond 2024
During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the provision of medical care through telehealth increased by 154%, and much of that increase occurred in behavioral health. This trend, combined with COVID risk mitigation strategies and temporary flexibilities in licensure and regulatory requirements, resulted in substantial growth in virtual-only medical practices. In the field of behavioral health, temporary flexibilities allowing telehealth-only prescribing of controlled substances has allowed these practices to flourish by allowing them to treat a full spectrum of conditions through remote-only care. However, as the COVID pandemic ended, an important question arose as to whether telehealth-only prescribing of...
On June 27, following oral arguments in April, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the case United States v. Idaho and remanded the case back to the U.S. Court of Appeals. Importantly, the decision also reinstated the prior injunction against Idaho’s prohibition of abortion under the Emergency Medicine and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), meaning that hospitals can once again perform abortion as part of medically necessary stabilizing care for patients presenting with emergent complications of pregnancy. Since the Dobbs decision overturned federal protections on abortion, Idaho is currently one of 14 states with the most restrictive laws prohibiting abortion, except in...