Page 29 - Telemedicine - Essentials of Virtual Care Delivery Part Two

SVMIC Telemedicine: Essentials of Virtual Care Delivery

Misidentification

While impersonation and identity theft can certainly be threats

in the traditional office environment, the electronic environment
makes these higher risks. It is important to have ways to verify

the identity of persons with whom electronic transactions
are being conducted. One practice, where policy requires

an in-person visit before patients are eligible for telemedical
treatment, is to capture a photo ID. This obviously isn’t fail-proof

and doesn’t help much when initial contact is online. Of course,
inadvertent misidentification and misrouting of patients, records,

prescriptions, results, and messages through multiple error
pathways remains an ever-present concern.

Confidentiality

The extensive thought that covered entities are required to
put into protecting health information needs to be applied to

real-time and stored data from telemedical encounters. Privacy
and security policies should address these in some detail, and

patients should be provided with them. There are no special
HIPAA concerns about telemedicine beyond those that apply

to in-person care. The exceptions for treatment, payment, and
healthcare operations apply. It is important to comply with

special provisions that apply to behavioral health information.

Scope of Practice

Another allegation that can arise in any patient encounter is
practicing outside the scope of one’s training, experience, or

authority. Practitioners (including physicians, advanced practice
providers, nurses, and assistants) need to be aware of the

boundaries of their skills in the telemedicine setting, just as

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