When Rep. Matthew Martinez, D-Monte Vista, needed critical care for a dog which developed spine issues, it resulted in a six-hour round trip drive to a veterinarian in Colorado Springs.
“We have been known as a home for wayward Pomeranians,” said Martinez, presenting a telehealth veterinarian care bill Monday to the Colorado House Agriculture, Water & Natural Resources Committee.
He recalled every two to three weeks transporting the dog from the San Luis Valley to Colorado Springs for treatment.
“I was able to make the drive, but a lot of people can’t,” Martinez said.
House Bill 24-1048, which Martinez sponsored with Rep. Karen McCormick, D-Longmont, would aim to make veterinary care more accessible to those living in similar outlying areas of the state, with limited veterinarian care access, by aligning state and federal law and by authorizing the state board of veterinarian medicine to establish rules for the use of telehealth services. Similar bills are in consideration in many other states, McCormick says. The bill passed through committee Monday on a 13-0 bipartisan vote and is headed to the House floor. It is sponsored in the Colorado Senate by Sen. Joann Ginal, D-Fort Collins, and Sen. Byron Pelton, R-Sterling.
“I think this is going to have a positive impact,” Martinez said. “I think this is great first step to get care that is needed out to the rural communities. For Pomerians to the cattle of the world, I think this is a great bill.”
The bill continues a requirement that a veterinarian to patient and client relationship be established first through an in-person, physical examination, which led to some opposition in the committee hearing.
“We’ve been practicing telemedicine since the invention of the telephone,” said McCormick, a veterinarian who explained that medical practice uses a variety of senses in assessing and treating the animal, and it is a necessary element. “Telemedicine should complement and not replace veterinarian care.”
That in-person, physical examination would potentially allow follow-up visits to be converted into telehealth care, she added.
One member of the committee, Rep. Richard Holtorf, R-Akron, who operates a Washington County cattle feedlot, indicated a vet is on his ranch about once monthly, and explained the bill “got me really excited”.
Another member of the committee, Rep. Barbara McLachlan, D-Durango, asked McCormick to define the differences between human and animal care when applied to telehealth services.
“Why can’t we do it the same way in vet medicine? In humans, we’re good about communicating with our doctor about symptoms. The teledoctor you are talking with is part of a health care system,” she explained. “[In veterinarian care, clients] depend on an expert trained in medicine to get to the bottom of what is going on with their animal.”
By aligning state and federal law and seeing veterinarians expand telehealth services, pet and livestock owners from rural to urban corridors of the state might see improved access and lower costs, many on the committee indicated.
While Rep. Mike Lynch, R-Wellington, offered that a veterinarian may not have looked at 200 head of cattle individually on a ranch, that is the veterinarian of the herd, he said. The bill requires “sufficient knowledge” of the animal, McCormick added.
She continued: “I have either visited the animal in person, or I have visited the farm or ranch with frequency to understand what is going on.”
And without that, she explained, a veterinarian is presently more limited in the ability to prescribe medications to treat an animal virtually.
In an area such as Eastern Colorado, where Holtorf ranches, while he may have access to a veterinarian for his herd, other livestock owners have difficulty hiring a veterinarian to see livestock on an individual basis. Often, appointments are days out because of a veterinarian shortage in rural areas of the state. Telehealth services could expand access to veterinarians, with the passage of the bill, he says.
“In this world we live in where everything is going to the Internet, I look at this in-person requirement as a consumer protection to ensure getting best care for the animals,” Lynch said.
Martinez returned to his explanation of needing specific care for his Pomeranian dog, specialized care his local veterinarian could not provide.
“This is going to be beneficial to our rural areas – our farmers and ranchers to get the care they need,” he said. “I think this bill is going to be really impactful.”
The initial in-person requirement is an important factor in the care of the animal, McCormick said, and urged to retain it in the bill.
“This bill is what we need to do for the animals and the people of Colorado,” she said. “It will protect pets, it will protect people and it will protect our food supply.”
One supporter of the bill indicated in testimony that only one in three animals in Colorado regularly have veterinarian care.