Starting a virtual clinic in Georgia: 2026 telehealth requirements

Georgia answers the patient-location question directly. According to CCHP's summary of O.C.G.A. 43-34-31.1, a physician located in another state or country who performs any act of patient care that affects a patient in Georgia is practicing medicine in Georgia and must hold a Georgia license or a Georgia telemedicine license. Georgia is a member of the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact under O.C.G.A. 43-34-301, so a physician with a qualifying principal license elsewhere can obtain a full Georgia license on the compact's expedited timeline. Check the IMLCC site for current issuing status.

The telemedicine license is the pathway that distinguishes Georgia. Per CCHP and the Composite Medical Board's physician licensure page, the applicant must meet the same base requirements as a full license under Rule 360-2-.01, hold a full and unrestricted license in another state, keep records under Rule 360-3-.02(16), follow Rule 360-3-.07 on practice through electronic means, and notify the Board immediately if any other state restricts or revokes a license. Issuance is at the Board's discretion. The license is limited to telemedicine and cannot be used to practice in person on a patient located in Georgia except in an emergency. The Board's fee schedule lists a 500 dollar initial fee, 230 dollar renewal and a 200 dollar fee to upgrade to a full license. The Board also cautions that the DEA treats a telemedicine license as a restricted license and suggests the full license for physicians who need DEA registration.

CCHP lists narrow exceptions where no Georgia license is required: an out-of-state physician who consults occasionally rather than routinely at the request of a Georgia physician, who consults in an emergency or without compensation, who works with a Board-approved Georgia medical school, or who is an invited guest providing professional education. None of these supports a consumer telehealth service.

For a brand, the telemedicine license lets providers licensed elsewhere serve Georgia patients without a full Georgia license, but if your program prescribes controlled substances the Board's DEA note points toward full licensure. Record which license type each Georgia provider holds in your credentialing file.

Our dataset classifies Georgia's corporate practice of medicine doctrine as limited or unsettled, and both 50-state guides explain why. Georgia's statutory prohibition was repealed in 1982. The Permit Health guide reports that Sherrer v. Hale, decided the same year, hinted at a common-law restriction on corporate involvement in the learned professions, and that no higher Georgia court has addressed whether the doctrine survives the repeal. The MedPath guide labels Georgia nuanced, describes non-physician ownership as largely permissive after 1982, and notes that the medical practice statute prohibits fee-sharing with non-medical entities for patient referrals.

Because the question is open rather than settled, cautious brands treat Georgia as if a prohibition might apply. The standard structure is a management services organization owned by the brand, which supplies the platform, intake, marketing, scheduling, billing support and administrative staff, paired with a professional corporation owned by a Georgia-licensed physician that employs or contracts the clinicians and makes every clinical decision. The management agreement should preserve physician control over diagnosis, treatment, prescribing and referrals, and should set the management fee at fair market value for services rendered rather than as a share of professional fees linked to referrals, which is the arrangement the referral fee-splitting rule targets.

Georgia does not require a clinic license for a lay-owned practice in the way Florida does, and the sources we reviewed did not cite a Georgia attorney general opinion on CPOM. The 2012 Composite Medical Board minute cited by Permit Health is the most recent regulatory signal the guides mention, so expect counsel to lean on structure and physician autonomy rather than on a bright-line rule.

AANP's state practice environment map, updated May 2026, classifies Georgia as a restricted practice state. Under AANP's definition, restricted practice means state law requires career-long supervision, delegation or team management by another health provider for the NP to deliver patient care. In Georgia that translates to an NP working under a physician-delegated arrangement, with prescribing authority flowing from that delegation rather than from the nursing license alone.

For telehealth staffing, every Georgia NP on your roster needs a delegating Georgia-authorized physician and a written protocol in place before the first Georgia encounter. An asynchronous program that leans on NPs in full-practice states cannot simply extend those NPs into Georgia. The CCHP cross-state section for Georgia contains no NP-specific telehealth rule, and the sources we reviewed did not state transition-to-practice hours, so confirm protocol requirements with the Georgia Board of Nursing and the Composite Medical Board.