Do healthcare providers need a special license to practice on the Internet? In telemedicine many states require that out-of-state physicians obtain the state license before electronically providing services to patients.

Some have proposed an independent, international body to assess “cyberdocs” and issue a special license to practice in cyberspace.

Medicine should consider adopting the consensus reached in e-psychiatry; the idea that the patient travels along the information highway to visit their provider in his/her office, the same way as he/she would to travel to see the provider if the provider was in another state. Viewed this way, online practices would not require special state licensure.