OH SB118

Requires multiple employer welfare arrangements, health insuring corporations, and sickness and accident insurance policies to cover telemedicine services delivered through oral, written, or electronic communication on the same basis as face-to-face consultations, effective immediately upon passage.

Permits insurers to charge deductibles, copayments, or coinsurance for telemedicine services, but limits these costs to no more than the amounts required for comparable face-to-face medical services.

Directs the Director of Job and Family Services to ensure Medicaid does not exclude telemedicine services solely because they are not provided face-to-face and does not mandate telemedicine when face-to-face service can reasonably be provided.

Requires the Director to establish a monitoring system for telemedicine services provided to Medicaid recipients to ensure quality care and prevent fraud and abuse.

Allows the Director to require a face-to-face follow-up consultation after an initial telemedicine service only if the physician had never previously seen the Medicaid recipient as a patient.