Wiki Telemedicine Billing

[MikeVee]

Hi guys,

I have an OT who wants to get into telemedicine. I know that this is a relatively new field, and Medicare currently doesn't have any fee schedules for it. The codes as far as I know are 98966-98968 range. Since medicare doesn't pay for these codes (I could be wrong, but if there is no fee schedule it's safe to assume they don't pay for them) can we use consultation codes(the ones that medicare does pay) perhaps to replace them?

Does anyone have any experience with billing telemedice? I would highly appreciate the input.

 

[thomas7331]

Here is a link to Medicare's guide to telehealth services which I found very helpful when we started implementing this in a practice I worked with. There is a list of the specific CPT codes that Medicare allows to be billed as telehealth. Note on page two that an OT is not a provider type that Medicare allows for this service - I believe that OTs also are not eligible to bill E&M in any case, so consultation codes would not be appropriate. Hope this helps some.

https://www.cms.gov/Outreach-and-Ed...NProducts/downloads/TelehealthSrvcsfctsht.pdf