• Shotaro Kinoshita, Kelley Cortright, Allison Crawford, Yuya Mizuno, Kazunari Yoshida, Donald Hilty, Daniel Guinart, John Torous, Christoph U Correll, David J Castle, Deyvis Rocha, Yuan Yang, Yu-Tao Xiang, Pernille Kølbæk, David Dines, Mohammad ElShami, Prakhar Jain, Roy Kallivayalil, Marco Solmi, Angela Favaro, Nicola Veronese, Soraya Seedat, Sangho Shin, Gonzalo Salazar de Pablo, Chun-Hung Chang, Kuan-Pin Su, Hakan Karas, John M Kane, Peter Yellowlees, and Taishiro Kishimoto.
• Department of Neuropsychiatry, Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan.
• Psychol Med. 2020 Nov 27: 1-8.

BackgroundDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of telemedicine as a way to reduce COVID-19 infections was noted and consequently deregulated. However, the degree of telemedicine regulation varies from country to country, which may alter the widespread use of telemedicine. This study aimed to clarify the telepsychiatry regulations for each collaborating country/region before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsWe used snowball sampling within a global network of international telepsychiatry experts. Thirty collaborators from 17 different countries/regions responded to a questionnaire on barriers to the use and implementation of telepsychiatric care, including policy factors such as regulations and reimbursement at the end of 2019 and as of May 2020.ResultsThirteen of 17 regions reported a relaxation of regulations due to the pandemic; consequently, all regions surveyed stated that telepsychiatry was now possible within their public healthcare systems. In some regions, restrictions on prescription medications allowed via telepsychiatry were eased, but in 11 of the 17 regions, there were still restrictions on prescribing medications via telepsychiatry. Lower insurance reimbursement amounts for telepsychiatry consultations v. in-person consultations were reevaluated in four regions, and consequently, in 15 regions telepsychiatry services were reimbursed at the same rate (or higher) than in-person consultations during the COVID-19 pandemic.ConclusionsOur results confirm that, due to COVID-19, the majority of countries surveyed are altering telemedicine regulations that had previously restricted the spread of telemedicine. These findings provide information that could guide future policy and regulatory decisions, which facilitate greater scale and spread of telepsychiatry globally.

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