NJ Doctor Board Looks Likely to Shed Telemed Providers’ Suit

Federal appeals court judges during oral arguments Wednesday seemed skeptical of two out-of-state physicians’ claims that they should be allowed to proceed with a challenge to New Jersey’s doctor licensing requirement as it applied to their telemedicine consultations with in-state patients.

Most of the questioning by the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit judges concerned whether the state’s licensing requirement burdened physician speech in a manner prohibited by the First Amendment. Led by Judge Thomas M. Hardiman, the three-judge panel focused on the extent to which remote conversations between a doctor and patient involve the practice of medicine. ...