The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released new rules that significantly broaden coverage for chronic care telehealth services.The rulemaking changes are inside the 1,185-page document detailing Medicare payments to physicians and other providers. The new rules also include seven new covered procedure codes for telehealth, including annual wellness visits, psychotherapy services, and prolonged services at physicians' offices.
Health Leaders Media reports, "The American Telemedicine Association, which had sought the expanded coverage for five years, notes that among the rules are provisions that will pay for remote chronic care management using the new current procedural terminology (CPT) code 99490, with a monthly unadjusted, non-facility fee of $42.60.
"For us, it was more important to begin to specifically address chronic care," says Gary Capistrant, senior director of public policy at ATA. "The combination of the chronic care management code and being able to use it in conjunction with monitoring of those chronic conditions is a big step forward and a very substantial change for Medicare." Capistrant says the new rules also represent an acknowledgement by CMS that reimbursing for chronic care could prove to be cost effective.
"It's an important policy move. Whether it is sufficient, time will tell, but it is certainly a step in the right direction and an important initiative," he says. "There has been a lot of focus on primary care, even with the Medicare population. That may be the 80% of the people but it is only 20% of the problem. There's an increasing emphasis on looking at the 80% of the problem that is 20% of the people, and that is chronic and specialty care. They understand that the government is spending a huge amount for chronic care conditions and that there is a value managing those to reduce the overall expenditures."
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