For years telemedicine has had a significant barrier – interstate licensure. Clinicians regularly see patients in their offices who live out of state, but when it comes to telemedicine they have for the most part been prohibited from doing this. In fact, it is easier to see an out-of-state patient when they actually leave the country by telemedicine than when they stay home. This might all be finally changing.
Telemedicine is slowly making progress in terms of more and more CPT codes for reimbursement being approved each cycle. For CY 2014 there are 2 new codes that have been added to the list of Medicare telehealth services! The first one is CPT code 99495 for Transitional Care Management Services.
Teleradiology has been around for quite a while and is rather established and quite widespread. So what could possibly be new? Surprisingly there is a lot of research still be conducted in teleradiology and at the recent RSNA (Radiological Society of North America) some interesting studies were presented.
There are so many applications for telepsychiatry it is often hard to keep up with all of them!
Need help getting started in telemedicine? Want to expand an existing telemedicine program? Or maybe you just want to find out more about what telemedicine really is. We can help you!