Georgia Legalized Teledentistry on January 1. The Consent Form Renews Every Year.
Georgia dentists can now see patients over live video. House Bill 567 took effect January 1, 2026, and it opens the door to remote consultations, evaluations, second opinions, and referrals for any dentist licensed and in good standing in the state.
That is the easy part to explain to a patient. The part that lands on your front desk is everything the law requires around that video call, and most of it does not expire once. It expires every year, for every patient, on a schedule your practice now has to track by hand.
What the law actually asks of the practice
Per the bill summary from legislative tracker PolicyRisk, a Georgia dentist offering teledentistry has to clear several steps before and after every remote visit:
- Notify the state dental board before starting remote care.
- Document a Georgia office for the treating dentist, plus the office of a referral dentist who can see the patient in person.
- Review the patient's full medical and dental history, confirm identity and location, and get parental consent for minors, before the first visit.
- Get written, signed authorization naming the treating dentist (and any hygienist involved) for each interaction.
- Renew informed consent at least once a year for ongoing patients, on top of the consent taken before the first service.
- Keep records of who referred the patient, and give the patient that referral dentist's contact and license information after every visit.
None of this is unreasonable on its own. A second opinion by video, with a documented referral to someone who can do the filling, is a sensible way to get a patient seen faster. The problem is that it is now five or six separate obligations per patient, and the law does not give you a system to track them. It gives you a list.
The insurance side adds its own clock
The law also changes what insurers can do with a teledentistry claim. Coverage from Oral Health Group confirms insurers cannot deny a covered service solely because it was delivered remotely, and cannot force a patient into a virtual visit instead of an in-person exam when one is appropriate. Insurers are also barred from sharing a provider's network data with plans that set their own fees for services the patient's plan does not cover.
In practice, that means a claim denial that reads like a routine coverage decision might actually be an insurer applying a rule the new law no longer allows. Your billing staff has to recognize that distinction on every remote-visit claim that comes back denied, starting now, for a law that is barely a year old and that most adjusters have not fully absorbed either.
Where the tracking actually breaks down
A solo or small group practice does not have a compliance department. The person who would track when a given patient's annual consent is due is the same person answering the phone, checking a patient out, and running tomorrow's eligibility checks. Annual deadlines that live in a sticky note or a spreadsheet get missed the first busy week, and the one teledentistry record that goes stale is the one that matters if the board or an insurer ever asks to see it.
This is squarely administrative work, not clinical judgment: watching a calendar, matching a patient to a consent date, flagging a denied claim that cites remote delivery as the reason, and pulling the referral record before the board asks for it. An agent that reads your scheduling and billing systems can flag an approaching annual consent renewal, draft the referral documentation for a dentist to sign, and surface a denied claim that looks like it is citing the old rule, so your staff spends their time confirming and approving instead of hunting for the record. The dentist and the front desk still make every call. The agent just keeps the list from falling through the cracks.
If your practice is in Georgia and has not touched teledentistry yet, the smart move is deciding now whether you want to offer it, and if you do, building the consent and referral tracking into your intake workflow before your first remote patient, not after the board's first records request.
Sources: Oral Health Group, "Georgia enacts teledentistry law to address dental care gaps in remote areas"; PolicyRisk, Georgia HB 567 (2025-2026) bill summary.