South Dakota Lawmakers Eye Telehealth for Emergency Psych Consults

South Dakota lawmakers have introduced a bill that would enable healthcare providers to use telehealth to evaluate patient under involuntary commitment for mental health issues.

SB 1, submitted this past week in the state Senate, scraps the requirement that a mental health examination be conducted in person and gives care providers the opportunity to use a real-time audio-visual platform.

The bill is designed to speed up treatment for people being held, either in jail or a hospital’s Emergency Department, pending an evaluation. It gives providers the leeway to use a connected health platform when immediate access to the patient is difficult.

A separate bill introduced in the House, HB 1005, aims to relax the rules for prescribing controlled substances via a telehealth or mHealth platform.

The bill eliminates the requirement that a provider and patient must have a prior relationship before the provider can prescribe a controlled substance using telemedicine technology. It also allows the provider to use asynchronous (store-and-forward) telehealth – including a phone call or online questionnaire - to establish a diagnosis for the prescription.

The bills were submitted at the request of a legislative task force convened last year to explore the use of telehealth and telemedicine to improve access to telemental health services.