There are 29 states and Washington, D.C. that have now passed parity laws for telemedicine. And this number will keep going up! Eight additional states currently have proposed parity laws on the table. Plus, commercial payers are increasingly motivated to cover telemedicine anyway, because of the cost-savings it can bring.
Here’s the list of states that currently have a parity law in place:
| Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Georgia Hawaii Indiana Kentucky | Louisiana Maine Maryland Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nevada New Hampshire | New Mexico New York Oklahoma Oregon Tennessee Texas Vermont Virginia Washington Washington, D.C. |
All parity laws mandate coverage for live video telemedicine, but only some also require payers to cover store-and-forward telemedicine. Some of the parity laws also have specific restrictions and exclusions. Make sure to visit the ATA website to review the parity law in your state.
The major health insurance companies—Aetna, Cigna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Humana, and United Healthcare—all offer some form of coverage for telemedicine. Some of these plans might say they cover telemedicine but they may only reimburse for telemedicine services on certain patient policies. For instance, a patient with a “gold policy” might have coverage for telemedicine, while a patient with a “bronze policy” may have telemedicine care listed as an excluded service. In most cases, private payers seem to reimburse at the same rate as the comparable in-person service.