![telemental health law and ethics]()
In an era where state lines and digital boundaries often blur, behavioral health professionals face the high-stakes challenge of navigating a complex web of legal mandates and ethical standards that differ across every jurisdiction. Failing to master these nuances can jeopardize your license and the safety of those in your care, making a comprehensive understanding of the legal and ethical landscape of telemental health an absolute necessity for modern practice.
This course invites you to untangle these intricacies by equipping you with the practical legal knowledge and ethical frameworks required to practice with absolute clarity, confidence, and compliance. By immersing yourself in these critical modules, you will find yourself better prepared to protect your professional integrity while delivering seamless, high-quality care to clients in a rapidly evolving digital world.
Instruction is led by a distinguished team of authorities: Raymond Barrett, LMHC, the founder of the Telehealth Certification Institute and a pioneer who helped shape national telemental health guidelines; and Ann Ordway, JD, PhD, a retired family law attorney and counselor educator with decades of experience at the intersection of law and clinical practice. Their combined expertise ensures that the curriculum is grounded in both rigorous legal standards and real-world clinical application, directly addressing the complexities of jurisdictional authority, ethical dilemmas, and high-stakes case scenarios.
The instructors utilize a direct, research-based approach that breaks down complex legal constructs into accessible strategies and actionable insights. Through a clear-eyed review of law, ethics, and case dynamics, they guide you through layered scenarios that illuminate the risks and responsibilities inherent in remote service delivery.
TeleMental Health Law and Ethics explores the history and settings of telemental health, jurisdictional authority, HIPAA compliance, and the intersection of state-specific regulations with telehealth logistics. You’ll examine the nuances of informed consent, mandatory reporting differences, duty to warn, suicide risk management, social media boundaries, and licensure compacts such as PSYPACT and the Counseling Compact. Additionally, the course covers the selection of secure technology, the application of cultural humility in digital settings, and the legal circumstances under which you may be involved in formal legal proceedings.
Key Takeaways:
- Clarity on Legal Authority: Gain a deep understanding of how state licensing laws, federal regulations, and interstate compacts determine your authority to practice across jurisdictional boundaries.
- Resolution of Complex Dilemmas: Learn to synthesize professional codes of ethics with practical decision-making models to confidently navigate inconsistent professional obligations between therapist and client locations.
- Safeguarding Practice and Privacy: Strengthen your ability to establish HIPAA-compliant technology selection processes and documentation practices that protect client confidentiality and minimize legal risks during formal proceedings.
Why this course?
- Pioneering Instruction: Learn from Raymond Barrett and Dr. Ann Ordway, leading authorities who have trained thousands clinicians and helped shape the national legal and ethical guidelines for telemental health practice.
- Comprehensive Regulatory Mastery: This program integrates five vital modules—including Jurisdictional Authority, HIPAA Compliance, and Formal Legal Proceedings—offering a definitive roadmap for navigating the complex web of state and federal mandates.
- Ethical Practice Protection: Protecting your professional integrity requires more than general knowledge; this course provides the "clear-eyed" legal frameworks and ethical decision-making models needed to practice with absolute compliance and confidence.
Learning Objectives:
- Distinguish major modalities, settings, roles, and terms essential to the foundational understanding of telemental health.
- Summarize research findings regarding telemental health efficacy, including potential benefits and risks, without overclaiming.
- Evaluate state licensing laws and federal regulations to determine legal authority to practice and the impact of jurisdictional boundaries.
- Assess legal and ethical dilemmas arising from inconsistent professional obligations between the therapist’s and client’s locations.
- Explain the legal circumstances under which a telemental health provider may be required to participate in formal legal proceedings.
- Apply the professional standard of care by maintaining boundaries of competence and ensuring digital services mirror face-to-face quality.
- Synthesize professional codes of ethics and decision-making models to resolve complex dilemmas unique to digital practice.
- Establish a technology selection process that integrates clinical, legal, and ethical standards, including HIPAA-compliant security.
- Apply principles of cultural humility to adapt technology, assessment, and treatment services for diverse populations.
Ethical excellence and legal compliance are skills that must be learned and refined to ensure your practice remains clinically sound and professionally secure.
We invite you to join us in this vital self-study program to equip yourself with the tools necessary to serve your clients confidently and safeguard your professional integrity in the future of mental health care.
Format and Access
This is a non-interactive, self-study course program. It consists of over 8.5 hours of video instruction and post-tests.
Availability:
From the time of registration, you have six months to access the coursework.
Who Should Attend:
This course is intended for clinicians who provide behavioral health services.
Teaching Methods:
This is a non-interactive, self-study course. Teaching methods for this course include recorded lectures, videos, a post-test, and a course evaluation.
How to Attend:
Course access and completion instructions.
Instructors
![Raymond Barrett Headshot]()
About Ray Barrett, LMHC, CEO
Raymond Barrett is the founder and CEO of the Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC (TCI). A licensed mental health counselor (LMHC), Ray is an innovator and leader in the field of telemental health. He’s an expert telehealth trainer, a respected speaker, and a trusted consultant.
Ray’s inspiration for TCI came from his clients that started asking him to conduct their therapy sessions over the phone. Ray had discovered a knowledge gap in mental health training. He wanted to fill that void with comprehensive and practical training in telemental health - so Ray created that training for himself and fellow clinicians.
Since 2014, TCI has delivered comprehensive telehealth training and consultation to a global network of more than 40,000 healthcare organizations and professionals. TCI now offers over 180 specialized courses, a vast array of telehealth resources, and ongoing free continuing education opportunities for telehealth providers. Among the most sought-after courses offered by TCI is the Telemental Health Training Certificate (THTC Certificate) program.
Ray played a significant role in developing the initial curriculum for the Board Certified Telemental Health credential (BC-TMH) for the Center for Credentialing and Education (CCE). He reviewed every training module. He helped draft content, including questions for exams. He even wrote and developed the initial draft of one of the training modules: Telemental Health Settings and Coordination of Care.
The American Telemedicine Association (ATA) - the most respected organization for telehealth - recently overhauled its guidelines. Ray was on the writing committee that developed Best Practices in Synchronous Videoconferencing-Based Telemental Health in March 2022.
In 2019, Ray participated in a task force for developing a clinical rating process for mobile apps designed to help treat depression. The recommendations were presented to ATA.
The Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF) is an independent, nonprofit organization that provides accreditation services worldwide at the request of health and human service providers. As part of the International Standards Advisory Committee (ISAC), Ray helped establish CARF’s standards for virtual services.
Ray also is a frequent speaker and consultant for professional organizations. He has presented for over 20 organizations since 2015.
![Ann Ordway Headshot]()
About Ann Ordway, JD, PhD
Ann Ordway has a law degree and a PhD in Counselor Education and Supervision. She is a retired family law attorney following approximately 20+ years of private practice in New Jersey, where she primarily worked with high conflict divorce dynamics, parenting coordination, and child advocacy. She received her MA and EdS in Counseling from Seton Hall University and completed her Practicum and Internship at the Counseling Services program on campus. Ann has been trained as a family mediator, a Guardian Ad Litem, and as a Parenting Coordinator. Clinical experience has included work with high-conflict families, victims of domestic violence, anger management with accused offenders of domestic violence, and school counseling. Ann has taught graduate-level clinical mental health and school counseling for nearly 14 years, both in-person and via distance learning. She was the College Academic Director of Counseling at a University in Phoenix, Arizona, and she is a former president of the Arizona Counseling Association. She is currently the program director at the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, where she facilitates the delivery of trainings for an international, interdisciplinary audience of family law professionals.
Dr. Ordway’s doctoral dissertation on the experiences of parenting coordinators working with high-conflict couples engaged in intimate partner violence dynamics is the foundation of her current research. She is a national and international presenter, and has published in peer-reviewed journals on topics related to high-conflict families, the impact of divorce on children, ethics, and the preparedness of counselors for court-involved roles and general court involvement.
Disclosure Statement:
The instructor(s) for this course receive compensation for their services. There are no reported conflicts of interest to disclose.
Credit Hours:
This course consists of 8.5 continuing education hours of credit (4 of which are ethics)
Counselors:
![NBCC ce Logo]()
Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No, 6693. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.
Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for Licensed Mental Health Counselors. #MHC-0048.
Marriage and Family Therapists:
Many MFT licensing boards accept our courses or one of the approvals which we have from professional associations. You can check with your board to determine if your licensing board would accept this course.
Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed marriage and family therapists #MFT-0135, effective May 8, 2025.
Social Workers:
![ACE ce Logo]()
Telehealth Certification Institute LLC, #1609, is approved as an ACE provider to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE provider approval period: 05/02/2024 – 05/02/2027. Social workers completing this course receive 8.5 total credits including 4.5 clinical and 4 ethics continuing education credits.
Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for Licensed Social Workers #SW-0435.
Addiction Professionals:
![NAADAC CE Logo]()
This course has been approved by Telehealth Certification Institute LLC, as a NAADAC Approved Education Provider, for educational credits. NAADAC Provider #193104, Telehealth Certification Institute LLC is responsible for all aspects of the programming.
Psychologists:
![APA CE Logo]()
Telehealth Certification Institute LLC is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Telehealth Certification Institute LLC maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for Licensed Psychologists #PSY-0128.
Art Therapists:
Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for Licensed Creative Arts Therapists #CAT-0093.
Other Professionals:
This course qualifies for 510 minutes of instructional content as required by many national, state and local licensing boards and professional organizations. Retain your certificate of completion and contact your board or organization for specific filing requirements.
This is a non-interactive, self-study course.
Close Captioning is available for live webinars and recorded video presentations.
You can click on the following links to view our policies:
This course was updated on March 30, 2026.
