Six hours a day, twice a week. That’s how long Claudia found herself behind the wheel of her car, making the round-trip drive from her home in Yuma, Arizona, through the desert to Phoenix to take her disabled daughter to regular appointments at a medical facility that could provide the care she needed. But now, the Phoenix trips have been cut back to just once a month: Claudia’s daughter can have most of her appointments from the comfort of her own home.
This sea change is thanks to relaxed rules regarding how Arizonans can receive medical care — and now, a bill headed to Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey’s desk will ensure those changes stay put. Passed with strong bipartisan support, Arizona House Bill 2454 is a window into how healthcare can be revolutionized across the country — and it’s an example other states should follow.
In response to COVID-19, many states sought to limit physical contacts, including in-person medical appointments. The federal government and 41 states successfully eased restrictions on many telehealth services — technology that enables people to talk to and obtain care from medical providers directly via phone, smartphone, or computer. For many people, such as Claudia and her daughter, the high hurdles to getting needed medical care became a lot lower. The many patients struggling with mental health needs, the school-age children receiving speech therapy, and the patients dealing with chronic conditions have been able to get more needed care and services on a more flexible schedule.
As with other states, Arizona’s emergency telehealth reforms were set to expire. But HB 2454 builds upon these temporary telehealth policies and makes them permanent. It’s a first-in-the-nation effort to allow registered healthcare providers who are in good standing in other states to provide services to Arizonans via telehealth, removing many of the restrictions and obstacles to meeting patients’ healthcare needs. And it points to a new future of healthcare access and delivery.
Even though Arizona is home to world-class healthcare, with some facilities drawing patients from around the world, medical providers are in short supply throughout most of the state — which is why Claudia and her daughter had to drive such a long distance to get specialized in-person care. But Arizona’s telehealth reform makes it easier for Arizonans, regardless of where they live within the state, to get needed care more conveniently and in a timely manner. If they can get the care they need from a provider within the state’s borders or from another state such as North Carolina, Tennessee, or Minnesota, then that option will be available to them.
And the reform will make a world of difference to rural hospitals and those serving medically vulnerable populations, boosting their ability to provide specialized services in a financially sustainable manner and better meet the needs of their patients in real time. So, for example, a rural Arizona patient who suffers a serious stroke can obtain in-person care from the local community hospital while also getting instantaneous medical guidance from a leading specialist at another facility across the country. It’s a recipe for better care — made possible by technological tools we have at our fingertips.
Claudia and her daughter no longer have to go back to six hours of unnecessary driving twice a week: What was good policy during the pandemic will remain good policy once it is history. Arizona’s telehealth reform takes the logical next step: building upon the COVID-era telehealth rules and making them permanent, providing a road map for other states to follow. With this innovative new law, Arizona is setting a national example for how to leverage 21st-century medicine and technology for many more people and bring us much closer to realizing the still-unmet promise of easier healthcare access.
Regina Cobb, DDS, is a Republican member of the Arizona House of Representatives for District 5 and the sponsor of HB 2454. Naomi Lopez is the director of healthcare policy at the Goldwater Institute and a contributor to Goldwater’s “Putting Patients First: Unleashing Innovation in American Healthcare.”
