Only in Idaho would the governor use a pandemic as an opportunity to reduce regulations!
Regulations were suspended during pandemic; now Idaho governor wants to banish them permanently
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.