Wiki Telemedicine

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KaylaRieken

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Is anyone billing for telephone calls or for visits via facetime? My doctors were also wondering about this too? Any information would be greatly appreciated.
 
phone calls and facetime or Skype are not telemedicine and cannot be billed as telemedicine. You can bill these as phone calls, however be aware that many payers put these to patient responsibility.
 
telemedicine is live, interactive videoconferencing between a beneficiary located at a rural originating site and a practicioner located at a distant site. A eligible originating site must be a practitioner office or specified medical facility, not a beneficiary's home or office. this is in the medicare regulations 42CFR section 410.78(b)
 
You should read the qualifying features for phone calls/online medical evaluation..(99441-99444) these are in the CPT book. in short the patient is the one that calls the provider, not the provider calling the patient. the patient cannot be calling for issue discussed in an office visit within the last 7 days. If the provider decides the patient must be seen urgently the call is not billable and the call must be 5 minutes or greater. If time spent on the phone is not documented, it is not billable. These are in the CPT bo0k.. If the provider initiates the call or preschedules the call then you have neither telemedicine nor phone calls you have the 99358-99359 non face to face visit.
 
Thank you for your information. I did read the CPT book and I looked on the CMS website for further information. It doesn't look like this will fit our office.
 
Thanks for this helpful info, Debra. Do you know if Medicare reimburses for telephone calls? 99441-99443 is not in the fee schedule.

Appreciate your time!!
 
they did but it was several years ago and then it was discarded as a payable service so you should fully expect it to be payable by patient
 
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