Cancer Specialist Sues New Jersey Over Telemedicine Restrictions

A medical doctor is suing New Jersey in federal court over its laws that limit telehealth services and prevent patients from accessing specialty cancer care that their local doctors lack the expertise to treat. Telehealth—also known as telemedicine, which has become increasingly popular in recent years—is the provision of healthcare remotely by way of electronic information and telecommunication technologies. But the medical establishment tightly regulates, and in some states forbids, telehealth. The COVID-19 pandemic nudged nearly every state to loosen or suspend telehealth restrictions so that doctors in one state could treat patients in another state without first getting licensed in the new state. This small, common-sense act “unleashed a new era in patient care,” according to the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), which is representing plaintiffs in the new lawsuit....