GLP-1 Weight Loss Telehealth in Indiana

Indiana is home to roughly 6.9 million people, and about 35.3% of Indianaadults have obesity. Whether treatment is appropriate for any individual is a licensed physician's decision; access should not depend on long waits or expensive in-person visits.

Cities like Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, Evansville have great healthcare networks, but obesity-medicine specialists often have months-long waitlists. Telehealth bridges that gap. From your home anywhere in Indiana, you can complete a medical assessment and be reviewed by a IN-licensed physician, without an office visit, once we open.

Indiana telehealth rules: Indiana telehealth prescribing is governed by Indiana Code 25-1-9.5. Under IC 25-1-9.5-8, a prescriber may issue a prescription to a patient seen through telemedicine even without a prior in-person examination, provided the applicable standard of care is met and the prescription is not for a controlled substance. Because compounded semaglutide and tirzepatide are non-controlled, an Indiana-licensed physician can evaluate and prescribe entirely through telehealth.

Indiana keeps the core of its telehealth law in one chapter of the professions title, IC 25-1-9.5, Telehealth Services and Prescriptions, and the most useful thing to know about that chapter is what the legislature took out of it in 2024. Until July 1, 2024, a practitioner physically located outside Indiana had to complete the certification requirements in IC 25-1-9.5-9, the Telehealth Certificate, and that practitioner's employer or contractor had to complete the parallel Telehealth Facility Certificate. Sections 5 and 6 of Senate Enrolled Act 132-2024, signed into law on March 11, 2024, ended that scheme. The Indiana Professional Licensing Agency, the agency that supports the Indiana Medical Licensing Board, announced that effective July 1, 2024 every certificate already issued would be terminated, permanently, and then wrote the sentence people skip past: all practitioners must still be properly licensed in the state of Indiana in order to practice in the state of Indiana, even to provide telehealth services. A registration step was deleted, not a licensing rule. The chapter itself reads the same way, since IC 25-1-9.5-3.5 defines a practitioner as an individual who holds an unlimited license to practice in Indiana in one of the listed professions, and a physician licensed under IC 25-22.5 is one of those license types. There is no telemedicine-only license here. The faster route is the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact, adopted by Senate Enrolled Act 251-2022 with its applicable regulations provided in statute at IC 25-22.5-16, which the agency announced as implemented and live in Indiana on July 5, 2023 and describes as a voluntary, expedited pathway to licensure for physicians who qualify. It produces a full Indiana license sooner, not a lesser one. What IC 25-1-9.5-9 says now is about jurisdiction rather than paperwork. Under subsection (a), a practitioner who is physically located outside Indiana is engaged in the provision of health care services in Indiana when that practitioner establishes a provider-patient relationship with, or determines whether to issue a prescription for, an individual who is located in Indiana. Under subsection (b), doing either means agreeing to be subject to the jurisdiction of the courts of law of Indiana and to Indiana substantive and procedural laws, for any claim asserted against the practitioner, the practitioner's employer, or the practitioner's contractor arising from that care. The statute calls this a voluntary waiver, by the practitioner and by that employer or contractor alike, of any right to reach for another state's courts or laws. Indiana stopped asking the out-of-state clinician to register. It tells them instead where any claim against them will be heard. The definition decides what counts as a visit. IC 25-1-9.5-6 defines telehealth as the delivery of health care services using interactive electronic communications and information technology, in compliance with HIPAA, including secure videoconferencing, store and forward technology, or remote patient monitoring technology, between a provider in one location and a patient in another. It then excludes electronic mail, an instant messaging conversation, facsimile, an internet questionnaire and an internet consultation, unless the practitioner has an established relationship with the patient. For anyone starting care, that is the clause to hold on to: an intake form is not a visit in Indiana. A separate exclusion covers certain services performed by an employee of the practitioner, or by someone employed by the same entity, under the practitioner's direction. Audio-only telephone contact appears in neither the list of inclusions nor the list of exclusions. IC 25-1-9.5-7 sets the standards. Subsection (a) holds a practitioner using telehealth to the same standards of appropriate practice as those standards for health care services provided at an in-person setting. Subsection (b) requires the practitioner to ensure that a proper provider-patient relationship is established wherever one would be required in person, and it lists the minimum: obtain the patient's name and contact information, along with a verbal statement or other data identifying the patient's location and, to the extent reasonably possible, the identity of the requesting patient; disclose the practitioner's name and the practitioner's licensure, certification or registration; obtain informed consent; obtain the medical history and other information necessary to establish a diagnosis; discuss the diagnosis, the evidence for it, and the risks and benefits of various treatment options, including when it is advisable to seek in-person care; create and maintain a medical record; issue proper instructions for appropriate follow-up care; and provide a telehealth visit summary that indicates any prescription being prescribed. Where a prescription is issued, and subject to the patient's consent, the prescriber notifies the patient's primary care provider of prescriptions issued, if the patient supplies that provider's contact information. Two situations lift that specific requirement: the practitioner uses an electronic health record system the primary care provider is authorized to access, or the practitioner has established an ongoing relationship by treating the patient at least two consecutive times through telehealth. The agency's page adds that where the second condition is met, the practitioner shall still maintain a medical record and notify the primary care provider of any issued prescriptions. On prescribing, IC 25-1-9.5-8(a) is explicit that a prescriber may issue a prescription to a patient who is receiving services through telehealth if the patient has not been examined previously by the prescriber in person, provided the applicable standard of care is satisfied, the prescription is within the prescriber's scope of practice and certification, the prescription meets the requirements of IC 25-1-9.5-8(b) and is not for an opioid, with a carve-out for a partial agonist used to treat or manage opioid dependence, and the prescription is not for an abortion inducing drug. A further condition applies where the prescription is for a medical device: the prescriber must use telehealth technology sufficient to allow an informed diagnosis and treatment plan that includes the device. IC 25-1-9.5-8(b) is the controlled substance subsection. It opens with the words "except as provided in IC 25-1-9.5-8(a)" and permits a controlled substance prescription to a patient not previously examined in person where the prescriber maintains a valid controlled substance registration under IC 35-48-3, meets the conditions set forth in 21 U.S.C. 829, acts in the usual course of professional practice and issues the prescription for a legitimate medical purpose, conducts the telehealth communication using an audiovisual, real time, two-way interactive communication system, complies with the INSPECT program under IC 25-26-24, and follows all other applicable federal and state laws. The audiovisual requirement appears in subsection (b), and subsection (a) in turn conditions a telehealth prescription on meeting subsection (b)'s requirements, so the two subsections have to be read together rather than in isolation. Little has been layered on top by regulation: IC 25-1-9.5-12 lets the licensing agency adopt policies and rules under IC 4-22-2 to implement the chapter, and the agency states that it has not adopted any. The chapter, section by section as the state agency publishes it, is linked below.

You can verify any physician's Indiana license at the Indiana Medical Licensing Board.