Telehealth & Digital Health Liability Insurance in California

California at a glance

Consent statute

Business and Professions Code Section 2290.5

Requires documented consent to the telehealth modality, separate from consent to treatment.

Compact status

Not a full IMLC member

Most out-of-state physicians need standard Medical Board of California licensure, not compact-accelerated intake.

Malpractice framework

MICRA as restructured by AB 35 (2023)

Separate noneconomic damages treatment for wrongful-death and non-death claims; confirm current figures and classification with counsel.

Insurance regulator

California Department of Insurance

Oversees carriers writing telehealth liability coverage for California-facing organizations.

Section 2290.5 telehealth consent duty

Section 2290.5 of the Business and Professions Code requires that a patient be informed about the use of telehealth and give consent to that specific delivery method, with the interaction noted in the patient's record, separate from any consent to the treatment itself. A platform that treats a single onboarding checkbox as satisfying both obligations invites a dispute over whether the patient actually agreed to receive care remotely, particularly in behavioral health programs where the therapeutic relationship depends heavily on the modality used.

Standard licensure track, not compact intake

California has not joined the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact, so a physician licensed elsewhere generally must go through the Medical Board of California's standard application rather than a compact-accelerated pathway before treating California patients. Platforms that built onboarding assuming compact speed for other states need a separate, longer runway for California-facing clinicians, and should confirm current licensure status before scheduling any California patient rather than relying on a multi-state roster built for compact jurisdictions.

MICRA after AB 35 and the confirm-with-counsel posture

California's Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act long set a noneconomic damages ceiling for medical malpractice claims, and Assembly Bill 35, effective 2023, restructured that ceiling with separate treatment for wrongful-death and non-death claims plus scheduled increases going forward rather than the older fixed figure. A telehealth defendant sued over a virtual encounter is generally treated as a health care provider for MICRA purposes, but exactly how a given platform or vendor is classified can turn on the facts, so confirming that classification with counsel before assuming MICRA applies is worth doing early in a claim.

Coverage across California's clinical density

California's academic medical centers and specialty referral hubs cluster around the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and San Diego, and telehealth programs routing California patients into those systems for escalation should document the handoff the same way they document the initial visit, since a gap between a remote encounter and an in-person referral is a common source of claims. Underwriters reviewing a California book want to see the Section 2290.5 consent workflow alongside licensure verification for every clinician actually seeing California patients, not just the states where the platform is headquartered.

Who we write this for in California

Telehealth liability FAQs for California