Little calls for ending more than 150 telehealth, other health care rules

Idaho could eliminate more than 150 rules and regulations in the coming months dealing with telehealth services, professional licensing requirements and health care capacity.

Gov. Brad Little temporarily suspended the rules earlier this year, in an effort to improve Idaho’s response to the coronavirus.

The move helped facilitate a huge expansion in the use of telehealth services over the past few months, as patients and doctors turned to phones and video conferencing applications to access needed medical care.

Department of Health and Welfare Director Dave Jeppesen noted that Idaho Medicaid providers delivered about 3,000 telehealth sessions from March through May last year. During that same period this year, by contrast, more than 117,000 sessions took place.

“The pandemic has driven about 10 years’ worth of telehealth adoption in the last three months,” Jeppesen said during a recent interview.

Given such results, Little followed up the temporary suspension with a new executive order Monday, directing state agencies to eliminate the rules on a permanent basis.

The order notes that if temporarily waiving the rules made sense during the pandemic, then the “presumption (is) that the regulations are unnecessary and counterproductive outside of the declared emergency.”

“This is a big thing,” the governor said during a brief news conference Monday. “We’re all aware of the fact that Idaho has one of the lowest number of doctors per resident of any state. We have a shortage of primary care physicians and all these other challenges. This is a big solution to it.”

Little noted that, as part of the state’s administrative rules procedures, the public still will have an opportunity to weigh in before any of the rules are permanently removed. The Legislature also will have the chance to review any changes during the 2021 session.

William L. Spence may be contacted at bspence@lmtribune.com or (208) 791-9168.