Opinion: Archaic in-person exam for digital prescribing is holding back health care innovation
At a press conference in 1986, President Ronald Reagan said he felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language were “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
Many health care innovators know the chill, wondering whether some well-intentioned arrangement might techno-legally run afoul of some chapter or verse of an anti-kickback or coding or other law. Most of these laws come from a good place: a bad thing happened in the world and enough people believed it might not fix itself that they brought the problem to Uncle Sam. But because health care plays such an important safety net function, and also because the government is the biggest player in it — think Medicare and Medicaid and CHIP and the VA — the uncle has gone a little nuts.
