Telemedicine

AMS is receiving multiple calls each day regarding what carriers are and are not allowing in light of COVID-19. We will be working on matrix to help understand and hopefully will have that ready soon. For now, see below for a summary.

3\27 Update:  COVID-19 COVERAGE Provisions for Telephone-Only

TECHNOLOGY – The Office of Civil Rights has relaxed the HIPAA compliant technology requirements so that tools such as FaceTime and Skype can now be used.

EXISTING TELEMEDICINE RULES – Do not forget that Arkansas law already requires all insured plans, including Medicaid, Arkansas Works and State Employee plans to cover services provided via telemedicine technology. Why is this important? For those health plans that are not allowing office and other visits such as medication management visits to be billed when using “telephone-only”, if you provide the service using other telemedicine communication technologies you can still bill for that service. The information below applies to coverage for telemedicine services according to Arkansas statute:

3/23 – HIPPA Allowances for Telemedicine Technology: The Division of Medical Services at DHS issued a memo on 3/23 regarding HIPPA requirements during COVID-19 outbreak. Physicians who use audio or video to provide telemedicine during this emergency can use any non-public facing remote communication product that is available to communicate with patients. This applies to telehealth provided for any reason, regardless of whether the telehealth service is related to the diagnosis and treatment of health conditions related to COVID-19.

Under this notice, covered providers may use popular applications that allow for video chats, including Apple FaceTime,  Facebook Messenger video chat, Google Hangouts video, and Skype. Click here to view the entire DMS statement.