Telehealth

The Massachusetts House of Representatives has passed sweeping telehealth legislation, accompanying a companion bill passed by the Senate in November 2017.  While Massachusetts is often considered a leader in health care innovation, the Commonwealth has not enacted significant legislation in this area for several years, and is among the minority of states without a meaningful telehealth insurance coverage…… Continue reading this entry

The Delaware Board of Medicine recently enacted new regulations pertaining to telemedicine and telehealth. As we previously reported, the new regulations are intended to clarify the language in Delaware’s Medical Practice Act, which imposes certain practice standards for what constitutes an appropriate patient diagnosis and treatment via telemedicine, including the allowable modalities and when an…… Continue reading this entry

Kentucky health care providers and patients will soon enjoy a revamped, and significantly improved, telehealth commercial insurance coverage law.  Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin signed SB 112 into law on April 26, 2018, imposing both telehealth coverage and payment parity requirements for Kentucky Medicaid, Medicaid managed care organizations, and commercial health plans in the Bluegrass State. …… Continue reading this entry

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds recently signed a new bill into law requiring commercial health insurers in the Hawkeye State to cover health care services provided via telehealth to the same extent those services are covered via in-person care.  The law, passed under HF 2305, takes effect January 1, 2019 and applies to all policies delivered,…… Continue reading this entry

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) at the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) just published a new report on OIG’s review of Medicare payments for telehealth services. The objective of the OIG review was to determine whether or not CMS paid practitioners for telehealth services that met Medicare requirements. The report concluded that, of the sampled claims…… Continue reading this entry

For over a decade, Medicare has required providers to append special modifiers to their CPT and HCPCS codes when billing for telehealth services. The two primary modifiers for telehealth services were GT (indicating the service was delivered via an interactive audio and video telecommunications system) and GQ (indicating the service was delivered via an asynchronous…… Continue reading this entry

Hospital-based telemedicine services continue to rapidly expand across the country, allowing providers to deliver care to rural areas and better allocate the staffing and availability of specialist physicians such as neurologists and emergency medicine.  However, despite the uptick in telemedicine services at hospitals, many medical staff offices still use the traditional “primary source verification” process…… Continue reading this entry

The telemedicine industry has been abuzz upon learning that provider-friendly legislation was included in the new federal Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, signed into law by the President on February 9, 2018.  But telehealth providers, hospitals, and entrepreneurs need to cut through the hype and understand what the provisions will really do for telehealth.  This…… Continue reading this entry

The new year continues to offer big opportunities for telemedicine and digital health companies, and one of the most notable developments is CMS’ decision to reimburse providers for remote patient monitoring (RPM).  Effective January 1, 2018, the Medicare program will pay providers for RPM services billed under CPT code 99091.  The service is currently defined…… Continue reading this entry