Lacktman Comments on Future of Telehealth Policy and Regulation

Partner Nate Lacktman was quoted in a HealthcareExecIntelligence article, “Telehealth21 Keynotes Map Out a Path for Connected Health Policy,” about telehealth policy and the regulation landscape in the wake of COVID-19.

Lacktman, who addressed Xtelligent Healthcare Media’s Telehealth21 summit in March, said the past year has seen incredible advances in telehealth access and coverage. But much of that progress could be nullified if federal and state lawmakers don’t come up with a long-term health care policy.

The challenge, said Lacktman, who chairs the firm’s Telemedicine & Digital Health Industry Team, is to learn from the past year to create a policy that will advance telehealth and fulfill the promises of connected care.

“I think there will be a lot of opportunity to mine the experiences that we saw in 2020,” he said. “It’s like a sandbox. … A lot of the rules just disappeared, right, and it showed, it demonstrated they’re not sacrosanct. People made up these rules, and many times they’re arbitrary.”

“What I think it should show to us is that we don’t have to assume that any of these things are permanent or inviolate,” he added. “They can all be changed and I think that if we’re able to demonstrate really valid use cases, I think we’ll see a lot more models in service areas come out of COVID – if nothing else out of necessity and opportunity.”