Telemedicine

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Since the 1960s, some have predicted that video visits with doctors would eventually become a common way that patients receive care.  However, it took the Covid-19 pandemic to bring that prediction to reality.

Referred to by many as telehealth, remote access to medical care went mainstream in March 2020 when the Department of Health and Human Services declared that, because of the pandemic, Medicare would pay doctors and hospitals for a broad range of telehealth services.   Those services would include care by physicians but also by nurse practitioners, clinical psychologists, social workers and other health care providers.

It allows providers to use technology to diagnose and to provide care that, previously, had been only available through in-person visits.

It has been, and still can be, a welcome method for individuals.  Rather than driving long distances to medical appointments, sitting in a waiting room with other sick patients or even having to access an emergency room, diagnosis, treatment and care can now be obtained from the comfort of one’s own home.

However, it also brings up the possibility that assisted-suicide advocates will use it to further expand access to prescribed suicide.
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2023
“Death Activists Oppose Limits on Virtual Access to Assisted Suicide”
(National Review — March 22, 2023)
“Assisted-suicide advocates say they believe in ‘strict guidelines to guard against abuse.’ They don’t”…
“Now, with residency requirements to obtain assisted suicide being repealed in Oregon and Vermont, without a new rule, a suicidal patient could plausibly obtain lethal drugs from out of state without ever having a personal consultation with a single doctor involved in the assisted-suicide process.”

2022
“Scott signs bill to allow telemedicine in medical aid in dying”
(Vt Digger — April 27, 2022)
Gov. Phil Scott signed S. 74 into law Wednesday, amending Vermont’s medical-aid-in-dying statute….
With S. 74, patients will now be able to request the prescription using telemedicine.  S. 74 also got rid of the final  48-hour waiting period.

“Senate Bill Would Extend Telehealth Flexibilities Beyond Pandemic”
(Hospice News — May 19, 2021)
A bipartisan group of U.S. Senators have introduced the Creating Opportunities Now for Necessary and Effective Care Technologies (CONNECT) for Health Act of 2021. If enacted the bill would expand Medicare coverage of telehealth service and make permanent flexibilities for virtual services implemented on a temporary basis during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It would permanently remove all geographic restrictions on telehealth services and expand originating sites to include the home and other sites….

Such services would include hospice telehealth, including permitting practitioners to recertify patients via telemedicine appointments rather than face-to-fact encounters.

“Employers, insurers push to make virtual visits regular care”
(AP — May 7, 2021)
Make telemedicine your first choice for most doctor visits.  That’s the message some U.S. employers and insurers are sending with a new wave of care options.

“Dying virtually: Pandemic drives medically assisted deaths online
(The Conversation — June 2, 2020Posted February 22, 2021)
Now, because of the coronavirus, volunteers are accompanying patients and families over Zoom, and physicians complete their evaluations through telemedicine….
After the initial visit, whether in person or online, aid-in-dying physicians carefully collate their prognosis with the patient’s prior medical records and lab tests….
More on Coronavirus (Covid-19)

Activists promote telehealth services
Compassion & Choices (C&C), the former Hemlock Society, quickly adjusted the spin and direction of its assisted-suicide efforts by using the pandemic lockdown to advance its goals. On March 20, President and CEO Kim Callinan sent out an email message pushing telehealth conferencing so patients and healthcare providers can have “office visits” online without face-to-face meetings. She wrote that the pandemic provides the opportunity “to make sure health systems and doctors are using telehealth… for patients to access end-of-life care options.” “These efforts,” she added, “should improve access to medical aid in dying [assisted suicide] in the short and long term.” [Kim Callinan, Email to supporters, 3/20/20; emphasis added]

Meanwhile, the newly formed American Clinicians Academy on Medical Aid in Dying (ACAMAID) issued a policy statement calling for the use of telemedicine by doctors to evaluate the assisted-suicide eligibility of death-requesting patients, conduct physical exams, and even be remotely present when the patient takes the lethal drugs. The six committee members who wrote the policy are all assisted-suicide proponents. One is Dr. Lonny Schavelson, who runs a clinic that provides only prescribed death. [ACAMAID, Telemedicine Policy Statement, 3/25/20]

Establishing telehealth as an essential mode of medical delivery certainly greases the skids for access to assisted death without the doctor ever seeing the patient in person.
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Overlooked absence of requirement of in-person diagnosis of terminal condition

As of April 2021. nine of the ten jurisdictions where assisted suicide has been transformed from a crime into a “”medical treatment” do not require that either the attending physician or the consulting physician diagnose the patient in person.  (Those jurisdictions are Oregon, Washington, Colorado, California,  Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey,  New Mexico and the District of Columbia.)

Only Vermont requires that the diagnosis of a terminal condition be made in person by an attending physician and that it be confirmed, in person, by a consulting physician.
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New Mexico attempt to specifically allow telemedicine for assisted suicide

Even before the pandemic, New Mexico legislators had attempted to specifically permit assisted suicide via telemedicine when, in 2019, they introduced HB 90 , the “Elizabeth Whitefield End-of-Life Act.” (See: Section 2 J; Section 3 G (2) (a); and Section 4 B.)  The bill was subsequently amended, leaving out references to telemedicine.  [See: Analysis of original 2019 version of HB 90]
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Articles

“In Vt. Advocates Say Medical-Aid-Dying Patients Should Have Access to Telemedicine”
(VPR – April 2021)
More than 70 Vermonters have  used prescribed medicine to end their lives since state lawmakers passed that death with dignity law in 2013.  Advocates say the law needs to be
updated.

“Telehealth can be life-saving amid COVID-19, yet as virus rages, insurance companies look to scale back”
(USA Today — July 8, 2020)
…”For Cynthia Peeters, who stopped driving because of COVID-19-induced anxiety, telehealth meant she didn’t have to ask family members or her working husband to drive her to the doctor.
“After COVID, telehealth should still be around,” Peeter said.  “There’s too much goodness — it resolved me finding a rider to the doctor’s appointment and makes doctors more available to people in the community who can’t drive themselves.”

“Assisted Suicide By Zoom”
(First Things — June 5, 2020)
“The American Clinicians Academy on Medical Aid in Dying– a newly formed association of doctors who assist suicides — recently published formal guidelines that permit doctors to assist suicides via the Internet. These guidelines state that examination should include a review of medical records and a video meeting via Zoom or Skype.  The second opinion can simply be done by phone.  This means that assisted suicides will be facilitated by doctors who never actually treated patients for their underlying illness, who may be ignorant of their family situations and personal histories, and who have never met their patients in the flesh.”

“Medical Aid in Dying by Telehealth”
Konstantin Tretyakov
(Health Matrix: The Journal of Law-Medicine, Case Western Reserve School of Law; Vol. 30, Issue 1)
[Written before the pandemic, the author concluded]
…”the concept of ‘in person’ examination should be expanded to encompass examinations conducted in real time through modern means of electronic communication, such as Tele-MAiD [the author’s  label for Telehealth Medical Aid in Dying]. Such communication establishes a valid doctor-patient relationship between the patient seeking MAiD and his attending physician.  Ultimately, these conclusions compel the finding that MAiD by telehealth is not only feasible, but also beneficial.”

“A Pandemic Benefit: The Expansion of Telemedicine”
(New York Times — May 11, 2020)
“Even if no other good for health care emerges from the coronavirus crisis, one development — the incorporation of telemedicine into routine medical care — promises to be transformative.  Using technology that already exists and devices that most people have in their homes, medical practice over the internet can result in faster diagnoses and treatments, increase the efficiency of care and reduce patient stress….
“For the benefit of us all, doctors as well as patients, let’s hope these new rules long outlast the pandemic.”

“Doctor on Video Screen Told a Man He Was Near Death, Leaving Relatives Aghast”
(New York Times, March 9, 2019)
A doctor on a video conference explained to Ernest Quintana that he did not have long to live. Mr. Quintana’s family members criticized the use of telemedicine in that circumstance….’I just don’t think critically ill patients should see a screen,’ she said. ‘It should be a human being with compassion.'”