Can a pharmacist provide services via telehealth?

The project’s principal investigators showed interest in knowing whether state laws and regulations authorize pharmacists to provide services via telehealth (called “telemedicine” in some states), resulting in the inclusion of this question in the template. In conducting this research, LAPPA observed that few states’ pharmacy laws/regulations expressly address telehealth, although several of them do at least mention telepharmacy, Instead, many states have general telehealth practice laws located elsewhere in the statutory code that apply to a large category of medical providers. In some states, the general telehealth provision is only found within the state’s insurance coverage laws. The vast majority of states include pharmacists within these telehealth practice provisions, either via express inclusion or by defining the set of healthcare providers who may use telehealth broad enough to include pharmacists.

Can a pharmacist provide services via telehealth?

• 32 states and the District of Columbia have a general telehealth/telemedicine practice law that includes pharmacists providing such services within the scope of pharmacist’s practice; Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

• 11 states where no general telehealth/telemedicine practice law within the statutes governing healthcare providers exist, but state insurance law authorizes or requires insurance coverage of telehealth services and the authorization includes pharmacists acting within the scope of practice; Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Virginia.  

• Three states where it is unclear if pharmacists fall within the state’s telehealth/telemedicine laws; Hawaii, Louisiana, and Wyoming.

• Four states and Puerto Rico where the answer to the answer is “no” because state laws/regulations do not address telehealth/telemedicine at all, or the laws/regulations that do address it apply only to healthcare professions that do not include pharmacists; Alabama, Kansas, New York, North Carolina, and Puerto Rico. Kansas pharmacy laws and regulations do address telepharmacy, however. 

More details about each state’s laws and regulations can be found in the individual state pages.