Wiki Virtual or audio only telehealth nutrition visits?

[SuFra21]

Our practice has a Nutritionist on staff and many of her patients are asking to be seen virtually. Per the code book the 97802, 97803, 97804 are approved for telehealth audio only not virutal. Has anyone else run into this? I can't find anywhere that the rule has changed but when I looked online there are many places that offer virtual nutrition. Any thoughts?

 

[jkyles]

Hi there,
Could you explain what you mean by "virtual"? Under current Medicare rules those visits can be performed via a real time audio and visual connection (what people typically call telehealth) or through an audio-only connection. A link to Medicare's list of telehealth codes, including the ones that can also be performed via an audio-only connection is on this page: https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Medicare-General-Information/Telehealth/Telehealth-Codes

Private payers may have different rules.

 

[SuFra21]

Hi there,
Could you explain what you mean by "virtual"? Under current Medicare rules those visits can be performed via a real time audio and visual connection (what people typically call telehealth) or through an audio-only connection. A link to Medicare's list of telehealth codes, including the ones that can also be performed via an audio-only connection is on this page: https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Medicare-General-Information/Telehealth/Telehealth-Codes

Private payers may have different rules.

Thank you for the reply! My provider wants to visually see the patients durring the session but the code book only has the audio only code symbol on the nutrition codes. Thats where my confusion is coming from. I followed the link you provided and to me this looks as though its approved for audio only no visual.

 

[jkyles]

Thank you for the reply! My provider wants to visually see the patients durring the session but the code book only has the audio only code symbol on the nutrition codes. Thats where my confusion is coming from. I followed the link you provided and to me this looks as though its approved for audio only no visual.

Hi there, there's still some confusion. For the list I sent you, if the codes have a Yes in the audio-only column it means they can also be performed audio-only in addition to audio/visually.

The only exceptions are for the codes that are never performed face-to-face, such as telephone E/M codes. I'm not sure what code book you're using. In the CPT manual they're flagged as telemedicine which means audio/visual.