This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, December 1st, 2015. I'm Caleb Brown.

Innovation in Medicine is a challenge and regulatory hurdles to cost saving innovation don't help.

John Davidson of the Texas Public Policy Foundation spoke with me about how a Texas board is throwing

up roadblocks

to the emerging field of telemedicine.

Desc what Teledoc does.

Tele-Doc is a telemedicine company.

It's one of the largest ones in the country that offers telemedicine. a many of whom offer telemedicine services to their employees as a health benefit.

Essentially you call up Tele-Doc and speak with a physician over the phone or over a video feed online.

And they have access to your medical records.

You can call and access a physician whenever you want. And why is that a problem in Texas?

In Texas that wasn't a problem for years, but in April the Texas Board, after a series of lawsuits between TeleDoc and the medical board, issued a final ruling saying,

you cannot use telemedicine services or you cannot practice telemedicine unless you first

establish a doctor-patient relationship.

And the only way you can establish a doctor-patient relationship is to have a face-to-face meeting.

After that, then a physician can meet remotely with a patient.

But that, of course, undermines the entire purpose of telemedicine which is to be able to

offer services on demand.

It reminds me, very out of left field, it reminds me of the laws that a bunch of states passed that said

sure you can have wine shipped to your home from our winery. You just have to go there

first and sign a document and let them take a picture of your

driver's license and then you can have wine shipped no matter where you live.

...