You'll find an additional 90 codes, including home visits (99341-99350) and critical care codes (99291-99292), that are billable to Medicare when your providers use telehealth services for the patient encounters.
The fresh batch of telehealth-approved codes joins the list of services that have been
freed from billing restrictions during the COVID-19 crisis. The total count of billable telehealth services now reaches 191 codes, up from 101 codes previously, according to a
Part B News analysis of the telehealth documents CMS released March 30.
Also note that CMS has lifted restraints on other areas that previously limited the use of telehealth. For instance, Medicare will not require that a provider have an established relationship with a patient for telehealth to be acceptable. That policy, for example, opens up new patient codes, such as initial observation care (99218-99220) and initial hospital care (99221-99223), for Medicare billing during the national health emergency.
Below is a sampling of services and codes that CMS has temporarily placed on the telehealth-approved list:
- Emergency department visits (99281-99285).
- Initial and subsequent observation and observation discharge day management (99217-99220; 99224-99226; 99234-99236).
- Initial hospital care and hospital discharge day management (99221-99223; 99238-99239).
- Initial nursing facility visits, and nursing facility discharge day management (99304-99306; 99315-99316).
- Critical care services (99291-99292).
- Home visits (99341-99350).
- Inpatient neonatal and pediatric critical care (99468-99473, 99475-99476).
- Care planning for patients with cognitive impairment (99483).
- Psychological and neuropsychological testing (96130-96133, 96136-96139).
- Therapy services, physical and occupational therapy (97161-97168, 97110, 97112, 97116, 97535, 97750, 97755, 97760, 97761, 92521-92524, 92507)
CMS made it clear that the traditional video-based definition of telehealth is also being pushed aside: "Providers also can evaluate beneficiaries who have audio phones only," the agency says.
Given other language in the March 30 policy documents from CMS, you may even find additional services not on the list of approved telehealth codes that will fall under the blanket telehealth exemption umbrella. This announcement applies to national and local coverage policies.
"To the extent that a national coverage determination (NCD) or local coverage determination (LCD) would otherwise require a face-to-face visit for evaluations and assessments, clinicians would not have to meet those requirements during the public health emergency," CMS states.
You can also provide supervision via telehealth, CMS says. "For services requiring direct supervision by the physician or other practitioner, that physician supervision can be provided virtually using real-time audio/video technology."
Resources: