Telehealth in New York workers’ compensation is no longer a pandemic arrangement. It became permanent on July 11, 2023, and the rules are specific about what can be done by video or phone and what still has to happen with someone in the room.
Most of what follows is convenience. Two parts of it are worth knowing before anyone schedules anything for you.
What counts, and who can do it
Telehealth means treatment delivered over two-way audio and video, or audio only, by physicians, podiatrists, psychologists, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and licensed clinical social workers.
Some authorized providers cannot use it at all. Treatment by chiropractors, acupuncturists, physical therapists and occupational therapists may not be rendered by telehealth. If your care is hands-on, it happens in person.
Your first visit is in person
Treatment may be delivered by telehealth “following an initial in-person clinical encounter when medically appropriate.” You start in the office. After that, the regulation builds in a rhythm of in-person checks that depends on where you are in your recovery.
- First three months — the acute and subacute phase. At least every third clinical encounter must be an in-person assessment.
- After three months — the chronic phase. An in-person assessment no less than every three months.
- Once you reach maximum medical improvement — an in-person assessment at least annually.
Within those limits the provider decides. The rule sets a floor, not a schedule.
What always has to be in person
Beyond the initial visit and the periodic checks, certain things are off the table for telehealth entirely:
- Any examination evaluating permanency.
- Procedures, emergencies, and eye conditions.
- Physical therapy, occupational therapy and chiropractic treatment.
- Starting a medication for a chronic condition.
- Urine drug testing.
- Any situation where a remote visit would affect the accuracy, quality or certainty of the assessment.
That first one matters more than the rest combined. Permanency is where the value of a comp case is decided — see what happens at a permanency hearing. Nobody is measuring your range of motion over a video call, and the regulation does not allow anyone to try.
Behavioral health works differently
Psychologists and licensed clinical social workers are treated separately, and more permissively. Telehealth is typically permitted for the first visit and for subsequent visits, including group therapy, regardless of the clinical stage.
For a worker whose psychological injury is part of the claim, that removes a real obstacle. Getting to appointments is often the hardest part of staying in treatment.
The independent medical examination
Here is the provision worth reading twice.
An independent medical examination may be conducted by telehealth only when all parties of interest consent, and only when the examiner is not offering an opinion on permanent impairment.
Both halves of that are protective. You cannot be sent to a remote IME over your objection, because your consent is part of what makes it permissible. And no matter who agrees to what, a telehealth examination cannot be the basis of a permanent impairment opinion.
If you are told an IME will be done by video, that is a conversation to have with your attorney before the appointment rather than after it.
Not wanting it is a reason
The Board lists among the circumstances calling for an in-person examination those where the injured worker lacks the technology, the capacity, or the desire to engage in a telehealth visit.
Desire is in that list alongside technology and capacity. You do not have to prove you cannot manage a video call. Preferring to be examined in person is itself a reason, and it is worth saying plainly when the appointment is being scheduled rather than after the report is written.
Why any of this matters to your claim
Telehealth is genuinely useful. It keeps people in treatment who would otherwise miss appointments because of transport, work, or pain, and gaps in treatment cause real problems in a comp case.
The risk is the opposite one. A file made mostly of remote visits can be thin where it needs to be detailed, because the findings that carry weight in a comp case — measured range of motion, strength, objective signs — come from examinations a camera cannot perform. If your case is heading toward permanency, the in-person visits are the ones building your record. Our page on treatment denials covers how authorization works alongside all of this.
Talk to a New York workers’ compensation attorney
If someone has scheduled you for a remote examination and you are not sure it is allowed, ask before you attend. The rules on what may be done remotely are specific, and they were written with limits for a reason.
Call (718) 701-2776. The consultation costs nothing, and you will speak with me.
12 NYCRR § 325-1.26, adopted by Subject No. 046-1613 and effective July 11, 2023.
We handle workers’ compensation claims for injured workers throughout the five boroughs and across New York State. If we don’t recover money for you, we don’t get paid.
Nothing on this page is legal advice about your own claim. What a particular examination requires depends on the treatment at issue and the stage of the case.
