For telehealth to improve health care outside cities, however, the regulatory environment needs to change. The sprawling health care system has many barriers baked in to limit harm, but they can also limit telehealth, said Jarrett Dieterle, director of commercial freedom at the R Street Institute, a public policy research organization. Current regulations “often will be kind of resistant to it in certain ways,” he said. “Some of the biggest barriers, basically it’s a new technology and the current regulatory regime, licensing regime for the medical field has yet to fully catch up.”

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