Role of Telemedicine during COVID-19

What is Telemedicine, and how is it supporting the medical industry amid COVID-19? 

Telemedicine is a revolutionary advancement in the medical industry, which benefits from the telecommunication technology. It allows the medical professional to diagnose, study, and provide treatment to patients remotely.

Another term that is closely associated with telemedicine is telehealth. Telehealth is generally used for covering a broader spectrum of healthcare services, and thus, also includes non-clinical services (such as administrative meetings, continuing medical education (CME), and physician training) along with telemedicine, which can be promoted over long distance via a broad range of communication modalities.

Amidst the current pandemic, telemedicine has become a reliable option for the medical practitioners to provide online consultation, diagnosis, and treatment to patients offering multiple benefits for both health care providers and patients.

The Benefits of Telemedicine for Healthcare Professionals amids COVID-19

• Medical software used in telemedicine provides assistance in diagnosis, prognosis, real-time patient monitoring, and gathering data for efficient treatment and better outcomes.
• Better time management, the requirement of less staff, reduced need for in-person consultation, are other benefits that health professionals can enjoy, which makes coping with the pandemic bearable.

The Benefits of Telemedicine for Patients amidst COVID-19

• Telemedicine enables getting medical consultation without having to leave home, which proves to be highly beneficial, considering lockdown and possible risk of infection in the pandemic.
• As the consultation takes place remotely, there is no possible risk of exposure to the virus and other potentially infective people.
• Telemedicine is a good way to bridge the gap between patients, physicians and health systems, enabling symptomatic patients to stay at home and simultaneously communicate with their providers through virtual channels minimizing the spread of the virus.
• Patients who are suffering from medical ailments other than COVID-19 can receive care from home minimizing their risk of contracting the virus.

How does Medical Billing and Medicare Insurance work in the case of Telemedicine?

At first, only specified telemedicine healthcare was covered by Medicare insurances. As the telemedicine industry grew, so did the allowable healthcare service list of Medicare Insurance. However, there are still many restrictions and specifications when it comes to availing telemedicine services. These specifications are decided by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) based on the requirement and condition of the medical industry.

As the pandemic severely impacted the United States, the dire need for telemedicine arose. Taking the current scenario in consideration, CMS temporarily expanded the range of healthcare services on an emergency basis, under the 1135 waiver authority and Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, for the betterment of medical professionals as well as beneficiaries. This made coping up with the healthcare expenses in pandemic substantially easy.

Which of the Telehealth Services are included in Medicare Insurance? 

A specific set of telemedicine services can be furnished by the Medicare beneficiaries that include diagnostic and management consultations, mental health counseling, and preventive health screening. CMS has bifurcated the Medicare funded telehealth services into three categories:

• Medicare Telehealth Visits
• Virtual Check-ins
• E-visits

Medicare Telehealth Visits: Under this category, a patient can avail an online medical consultation with a healthcare professional with whom the patient has a prior established medical relationship. However, no audits will be conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to ensure the validity of the established medical relationship for the insurance claims deposited during a public health emergency.

Virtual Check-ins: Virtual Check-ins are brief communications via virtual modalities to overcome geographical restriction for healthcare consultation.These consultations are initiated by the patient with their medical practitioner with whom they have prior established medical relationship.

E-visits: E-visits are somewhat similar to virtual check-ins. The only distinction is that the communications involved in e- visits take place via patient portals. Similar to the virtual check-in, e-visit service requests are also initiated by the patients and can only be availed when the patient has an established medical relationship with the medical practitioner.

Telemedicine consultations help avoiding close contact of providers with the patients, thereby decreasing the chances of spreading the COVID-19 infection. During such tough times, telemedicine plays a huge role in helping to curb the spread of infection. It has helped reduce the burden on healthcare institutions and provided the option to non COVID-19 patients to get the required care remotely without running the risk of getting infected.