January 07, 2004
Online Consultation Now Billable
This week the AMA has made a temporary Current Procedural Terminology, or CPT, code for online consultations available. The code, 0074T will be used for reimbursement of appropriate online patient-physician consultations. Although the code will only become official in July, it is being released now to give providers and payers time to program it into their information systems. Currently, only a small number of payers currently reimburse for online consultations and generally through pilots or selected programs.
According to an article in Health Data Management,"an online medical evaluation is a type of Evaluation & Management service provided by a physician or qualified health care professional, to a patient using Internet resources, in response to the patient’s online inquiry. Reportable services involve the physician’s personal timely response to the patient’s inquiry and must involve permanent storage (electronic or hard copy) of the encounter. This service should not be reported for patient contacts (e.g., telephone calls) considered to be pre-service or post-service work for other E&M or non-E&M services. A reportable service would encompass the sum of communication (e.g., related telephone calls, prescription provision, laboratory orders) pertaining to the online patient encounter or problem(s)."
Posted by rsk at January 7, 2004 02:16 PM