Telemedicine allows health care professionals to evaluate, diagnose, and treat patients at a distance using telecommunications technology. The approach has been through a striking evolution in the last decade and it is becoming an increasingly important part of the American healthcare infrastructure.
Careeo Healthcare makes it easy to seamlessly integrate telemedicine into existing practice workflows, allowing physician practices to provide convenient and efficient care while driving incremental revenue for their practice.
Telemedicine vs Telehealth
Although the terms telemedicine and telehealth are often used interchangeably, there is a distinction between the two.
The term telehealth includes a broad range of technologies and services to provide patient care and improve the healthcare delivery system as a whole. Telehealth is different from telemedicine because it refers to a broader scope of remote healthcare services than telemedicine. While telemedicine refers specifically to remote clinical services, telehealth can refer to remote non-clinical services, such as provider training, administrative meetings, and continuing medical education, in addition to clinical services. According to the World Health Organization, telehealth includes, “Surveillance, health promotion, and public health functions.”
Telemedicine involves the use of electronic communications and software to provide clinical services to patients without an in-person visit. Telemedicine technology is frequently used for follow-up visits, management of chronic conditions, medication management, specialist consultation, and a host of other clinical services that can be provided remotely via secure video and audio connections.
Billing for telemedicine can be tricky, to say the least, and with the COVID-19, the coronavirus, telemedicine is changing almost on a daily basis which makes it hard to keep up. The guidelines for billing telemedicine are still forming. In fact, the rules for billing telemedicine are not only changing rapidly but also vary from payer to payer (Medicare, Medicaid, Private payers).
Careeo helps provider to use Telemedicine codes for Physicians, Nurse Practitioners, Physician Assistants, Nurse Midwives, Clinical nurse specialists, Clinical Psychologists, Clinical Social Workers, & Registered dietitians or nutrition professionals
- We always verify that the patient’s insurance covers telemedicine beforehand.
- We verify the telemedicine guidelines for each payer
- We ask the payer what are the CPT codes eligible for billing telemedicine
- We know when to use the GT and 95 modifier & Appropriate POS
Like all technology in the healthcare space, telemedicine solutions need to be HIPAA compliant to protect patient privacy. While an app like Skype might offer a doctor an easy way to consult a patient remotely, using it in that way is not in compliance with HIPAA. The technology used for telemedicine services needs to ensure high-level security and prevent any breaches of patient personal health data.
But as the National Policy Telehealth Resource Center notes, “Compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is more complex than simply using products that claim to be ‘HIPAA-compliant.” Not only does the telemedicine platform need to be compliant, but all providers, patients, and staff using the tool also need to ensure they are in compliance with HIPAA. A telemedicine software vendor, for instance, not only needs to build a secure product, but also ensure their company is operating in accordance with HIPAA.
HIPAA compliance entails an organized set of secure, monitored, and documented practices within and between covered entities. Though products cannot ensure compliance, some products may contain elements or features that allow them to be operated in a HIPAA-compliant way.
