Displaying items by tag: States
Telemental health has greatly expanded in NC
North Carolina is greatly utilizing telemental health. The Statewide Telepsychiatry Program (NC-STeP) in NC anticipates connecting eighty or more hospital emergency departments with psychiatric assessments and consultations. Most major insurance companies in NC are reimbursing for telebehavioral health services. The Center for Rural Health Innovation’s Health-e-Schools program provides school-based telehealth services to thirty-three schools in four counties. North Carolina has a proposed telehealth parity law, HB 283. Both Licensed Professional Counselors and Social Workers in North Carolina can now receive supervision hours through the use of technology.
The expansion of telemental health in North Carolina is helping overcome the barriers to access to treatment. If you are a behavioral health clinician in North Carolina, I encourage you to seek training in telemental health.
You can earn you Telemental Health Training Certificate (THTC) by taking one of our upcoming courses. Click here to find a training closest to you.
The Results of Georgia’s Telemental Health Rule
The results are coming in from the Georgia Telemental Health Rule. Should other states follow suit?
Georgia requires that Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists, and Licensed Professional Counselors, who provide telemental health services, attend at least a 6 hour CE training on telemental health counseling. Clinical supervisors are required to take an additional 3 CE hour course on how to supervise telemental health counseling.
States' Rules and Regulations
- TeleMental Health Laws
- Licensing Boards’ Contact Information
- Privacy Laws Per State
- Breach Notification Laws in States
- Tarasoff Laws by State: Duty to Protect and Warn
- Mandatory Reporter Laws
- Age of Consent to Treatment by State
- States’ Responses to COVID-19
- TeleMental Health Laws
- Licensing Boards’ Contact Information
- Privacy Laws Per State
- Breach Notification Laws in States
- Tarasoff Laws by State: Duty to Protect and Warn
- Mandatory Reporter Laws
- Age of Consent to Treatment by State
- States’ Responses to COVID-19
TeleMental Health Laws
This page provides behavioral health professionals resources for locating the laws, rules, and regulations for providing telemental health services in the United States of America. If you are a counselor, social worker, marriage and family therapists, or psychologists wanting to know the regulations for providing mental health services from a distance in the state you are licensed or in another state, you should find this information very helpful.
Telehealth is a rapidly changing field. We cannot guarantee the accuracy of any of the content shared on this site or any of the sites referenced. This information is not intended to give any legal advice. When practicing telehealth it is important to contact your own attorney and the state licensing board of both your location and the location of the client!
You can click on the names of the states below in order to view whether or not that state has specific regulations on telemental health services for your profession, laws regulating insurance reimbursement for telemental health, or provisions for out-of-state clinicians to practice in that state.
Since licensed clinicians are regulated by laws beyond their license, we have also included resources on other pertinent laws in other informational tabs on this page.
Licensing Boards’ Contact Information
On the following pages you can located the website and/or contact information of licensing boards in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
On the licensing boards’ websites you can find:
- the requirements for licensure
- rules and regulations
- the license law and definition
- whether adhering to a specific code of ethics is required by the license
- the requirements for renewing a license
Privacy Laws Per State
Many states have their own healthcare privacy laws. It is important to be aware of any healthcare privacy laws in any state you practice. At the Health Information & the Law Project site you can find health privacy law for most states. Health Information & the Law Project, is a project of the George Washington University's Hirsh Health Law and Policy Program and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It is also helpful to contact your licensing board and state department of mental health to inquire if there are specific privacy laws related to mental health information.
Breach Notification Laws in States
When there is a breach of protected health information it is important that clinicians are aware of the breach notification laws that they are regulated by. Breach notification laws inform the clinician of what they are required to do when there is a breach and whom they are required to notify. As a behavioral health professional in the United States you might be regulated by HIPAA law, 42 CFR part 2, licensure law, and or state breach notification laws. The Mintz Levin law firm provides a great resource for finding state breach notification laws
Tarasoff Laws by State: Duty to Protect and Warn
When practicing in any state in the United States of America, it is important to know if that state has a duty to warn or duty to protect law. Some states’ laws require disclosing when a client may become violent and some permit it. Some protect the clinician from liability when they disclose this information and some do not. The National Conference of State Legislatures provides a great resource listing the duty to warn and duty to protect laws in the United States.
Mandatory Reporter Laws
The Child Welfare Information Gateway provides information on states' laws regarding mandatory reporters of child abuse.
The United States Department of Justice provides a list of the mandatory reporting laws regarding elder abuse for each state.
Age of Consent to Treatment by State
On the following pages, you can find references to laws on the age of consent to treatment and laws relating to clients’ ages and the disclosure of records.
States’ Responses to COVID-19
Below you can find individual state’s responses to COVID-19.
Other resources include:
- National Conference of State Legislators
- Center for Connected Health Policy (CCHP) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to maximize telehealth's ability to improve health outcomes, care delivery, and cost-effectiveness. Their website covers all things telehealth policy, to include the current state laws and reimbursement policies, legislation and regulation tracking, state telehealth laws and reimbursement policies, as well as national policy and telehealth resources in the wake of COVID-19.
- The American Psychiatric Association has published resources and guidance on their website in regards to COVID-19
- Department of Health and Human Resources response to COVID-19
- Centers for Disease Control information on COVID-19
- Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) published resources on COVID-19 here.
Note: As this is a free resource and Rules and Regulations regarding Telehealth are always changing, we appreciate any updates or corrections. They can be This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with a link to the source or a citation of the rule or regulation.
Telemental health is not a separate service from mental health services. All state licensing boards require that licensed clinicians follow all the regulations for practicing under their license no matter what medium of communication is used. All licensing boards also require that clinicians only practice within the boundaries of their competence. This usually requires education, continuing education, and/or supervision in telemental health. Complete our telehealth training program to cover all the essential competencies of providing telemental health services and earn the THTC (Telemental Health Training Certificate).
Very informative session.
Video was good, a little slow
This is great material!
Very Informative!!!!
Really good training so far!
Excellent information, extremely generous resources and so well paced. I am really grateful.
Very thorough and informative
This program is very informative and easy to use.
Love the convenience and easy-to-understand information in this course.
Very informative. Help give an overview of tele therapy and starting an online practice.
The course was easy to follow and provided a lot of valuable insight into the benefits and limitations to teletherapy.
Wonderfully compact and rich in information, many areas i had not even considered!
Great presentation!
Helpful and inviting information to get started. Feel empowered to get this going and eager to start!
Well presented, easy to access and understand.
This was very informative.
I believe this is a good course to take because this is the new wave of society. As a therapist I would like to be able to offer clients the best tools available.
Thank you for the introduction to telemental health.
Very good.
Really excellent training full of valuable information and resources - surpassed my expectations!
Great information with step by step instructions
What a superb introduction to telemental health, well organized and packed with useful tips. I so appreciate this. Thank you.
Awesome job! This is a very insightful presentation.
An excellent course, but needs more legal information regarding where the patient needs to reside.
Course provided several case scenarios regarding Interstate counseling and resource websites for further research.
Very Informative
Awesome
Great course, very informative!
Love the course, worth every penny!!! Definitely helped jump start my Tele-mental health services!
This gave me and my staff some important insights and information regarding telehealth..
This course was easy and user friendly
I learned a great deal from this program and look forward to implementing telemental health in my therapy practice.
It was fantastic! Just the forms he provides are worth the cost of the course!
This was an excellent class and worth my time. Ray provided great information and is clearly an expert in TMH!
I found these courses informative and helpful. They make establishing best practices policies and procedures for telemental health services and supervising those who provide them. so much easier. I highly recommend his courses.
Ray's workshop was one of the most informative I have taken in years. He brought clarity to took a topic which has been intimidating and I left feeling empowered!
