Practitioners who perform hearing, speech and cognitive therapy now have more services they can provide via telehealth during the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE).
The update comes a little more than a year after the first wave of telehealth changes that were prompted by the emergency.
The only hint about the change is a note that the
list of Medicare telehealth services was updated March 30. A look at the list reveals Medicare added the following 24 services as temporary codes. Telehealth coverage for these services is slated to end when the PHE expires.
|
Code
|
Short descriptor
|
|
92526
|
Oral function therapy
|
|
92550
|
Tympanometry & reflex thresh
|
|
92552
|
Pure tone audiometry air
|
|
92553
|
Audiometry air & bone
|
|
92555
|
Speech threshold audiometry
|
|
92556
|
Speech audiometry complete
|
|
92557
|
Comprehensive hearing test
|
|
92563
|
Tone decay hearing test
|
|
92565
|
Stenger test pure tone
|
|
92567
|
Tympanometry
|
|
92568
|
Acoustic refl threshold tst
|
|
92570
|
Acoustic immitance testing
|
|
92587
|
Evoked auditory test limited
|
|
92607
|
Ex for speech device rx 1hr
|
|
92608
|
Ex for speech device rx addl
|
|
92609
|
Use of speech device service
|
|
92610
|
Evaluate swallowing function
|
|
92625
|
Tinnitus assessment
|
|
92626
|
Eval aud funcj 1st hour
|
|
92627
|
Eval aud funcj ea addl 15
|
|
96105
|
Assessment of aphasia
|
|
96125
|
Cognitive test by hc pro
|
|
97129
|
Ther ivntj 1st 15 min
|
|
97130
|
Ther ivntj ea addl 15 min
|
The addition comes just weeks after CMS issued a Federal Register correction to the 2021 Medicare physician fee schedule that
removed four codes from the Medicare telehealth list retroactive to Jan. 1 this year. Those codes include: 96121 (Neurobehavioral status exam) and initial hospital care codes 99221, 99222 and 99223.