Archaic in-person exam for digital prescribing is holding back health care innovation

Many health care innovators know the chill, wondering whether some well-intentioned arrangement might techno-legally run afoul of some chapter or verse of an anti-kickback or coding or other law. Most of these laws come from a good place: a bad thing happened in the world and enough people believed it might not fix itself that they brought the problem to Uncle Sam. But because health care plays such an important safety net function, and also because the government is the biggest player in it — think Medicare and Medicaid and CHIP and the VA — the uncle has gone a little nuts.

One area where health care innovation may be bumping against unintended consequences of a well-meaning law is the Ryan Haight Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act. It was enacted in 2008 to regulate internet prescriptions after Ryan Haight, an active 18-year-old, overdosed and died after taking Vicodin he obtained a prescription for from a physician online that was then dispensed from an online pharmacy.