FON: THE BUSINESS OF INTEGRATIVE HEALTH & MEDICINE

Telemedicine Legal Series—Part 5: HIPAA

By Michael H. Cohen In this Series: Introduction Part 1: Practice Issues Part 2: Licensing Issues Part 3: e-Prescribing Part 4: Standard of Care Issues Part 5: HIPAA Issues Part 6: Mobile Medical Apps Part 7: Unlicensed Practice, Fee-Splitting, and other Legal Hazards Conclusion Privacy, confidentiality, and security issues arise when practicing telehealth or telemedicine just as they do in a brick-and-mortar practice. It’s especially important to understand these issues, since

7-Part Telemedicine Legal Series—Part 4: Standard of Care Issues

By Michael H. Cohen In this Series:IntroductionPart 1: Practice IssuesPart 2: Licensing IssuesPart 3: e-PrescribingPart 4: Standard of Care IssuesPart 5: HIPAA IssuesPart 6: Mobile Medical AppsPart 7: Unlicensed Practice, Fee-Splitting, and other Legal HazardsConclusion How do healthcare practitioners handle standard of care issues when diagnosing and treating from a distance? Standard of Care Identical The key rule is that the standard of care in telemedicine is identical to the standard

HOW TO USE PERSUASION TO ENGAGE INTEGRATIVE MEDICINE CUSTOMERS, image of Aristotle

How to Use Persuasion to Engage Integrative Medicine Customers

When it comes to persuasion, Greek philosopher Aristotle set the gold standard in 350 BCE. Aristotle’s modes of persuasion have stood the test of time, and can be applied to various aspects of your communication efforts today to best engage patients, clients, and prospects. According to Aristotle: Persuasion is achieved by the speaker’s personal characterwhen the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible. […]Secondly, persuasion may

Telemedicine Legal Series—Part 3: E-Prescribing

By Michael H. Cohen In this Series:IntroductionPart 1: Practice IssuesPart 2: Licensing IssuesPart 3: e-PrescribingPart 4: Standard of Care IssuesPart 5: HIPAA IssuesPart 6: Mobile Medical AppsPart 7: Unlicensed Practice, Fee-Splitting, and other Legal HazardsConclusion The law handles telemedicine prescription differently than diagnosing and treating remotely. How can you best comply? Prescribing is Different Than Other Treatment This is a tricky thing about telemedicine law; you need to read the statutes

essential integrative health, image of a rocket coming from a computer, graphic.

11 Essentials for Your Integrative Medicine Business Plan

Every new integrative health and medicine enterprise and organization should have a well-researched and well-written business plan. In this post I walk you through the key elements of a business plan, and the essentials on which to focus, based on your approach to financing. But first, how are you funding your startup or expansion? Your primary options are investors, bank loans, or self-funding. Let’s take a look. Investors Investors are

Telemedicine Legal Series—Part 1: Practice Issues

By Michael H. Cohen, JD In this Series:IntroductionPart 1: Practice IssuesPart 2: Licensing IssuesPart 3: e-PrescribingPart 4: Standard of Care IssuesPart 5: HIPAA IssuesPart 6: Mobile Medical Apps Part 7: Unlicensed Practice, Fee-Splitting, and other Legal HazardsConclusion What is the difference between telehealth and telemedicine, and simply delivering educational tools online? Can practitioners offer webinars and other online health informational services without being subject to laws governing both the practice of

Telemedicine Legal Series—Part 2: Licensing Issues

By Michael H. Cohen, JD In this Series: Introduction Part 1: Practice Issues Part 2: Licensing Issues Part 3: e-Prescribing Part 4: Standard of Care Issues Part 5: HIPAA Issues Part 6: Mobile Medical Apps Part 7: Unlicensed Practice, Fee-Splitting, and other Legal Hazards Conclusion Because telehealth and telemedicine often involve practice across state lines, healthcare practitioners must understand the state laws which allow practice in situations where the healthcare provider

7-Part Telemedicine Legal Series—Introduction

By Michael H. Cohen, JD In this Series:IntroductionPart 1: Practice IssuesPart 2: Licensing IssuesPart 3: e-PrescribingPart 4: Standard of Care IssuesPart 5: HIPAA IssuesPart 6: Mobile Medical AppsPart 7: Unlicensed Practice, Fee-Splitting, and other Legal HazardsConclusion Healthcare providers everywhere are looking to expand from a brick-and-mortar practice to one that includes online and mobile patient services. Does this describe you? Broadly speaking, we call online and mobile health ‘telehealth’ or ‘telemedicine’.

Why I Write—and Why You Should, Too

I’ve written more in the last five years than the previous two decades combined. This body of work, for FON, exceeds 150 posts on this blog, scores of articles for other outlets, three e-books, and one very personal memoir. In my previous career—publisher of a consumer magazine—I contributed a whopping two articles over 25 years; and they needed a lot of cleaning up. But that was okay, I didn’t fancy