10/27/2021

Telehealth Instead of House Calls

If I do house calls for patients and want to do a telehealth visit instead, is the place of service 12 and the visit code 99348 or 99347? 2. Typed signed notes must be signed dated and saved for the televisit. But must the entire video of the visit also be saved onto my hard drive or elsewhere?

If a patient scheduled for a home visit wants to do a telehealth visit instead, you cannot bill with a home visit E&M code. Depending on whether the visit is the patient’s initial visit or if they are an established patient, CPT codes 99202-99215 should be billed for the encounter. For whatever code is selected, there are two key changes to distinguish this E&M code as a telehealth visit instead of an office visit:

• The POS should be billed as 02 for telehealth services instead of 11 for office-based services
• The E&M code should be billed with modifier -95

Telehealth visits do not have many other requirements for documentation aside from adding some key details specific to the virtual visit in the notes. The video communication with the patient does not have to be saved on a local hard drive or server. Below are key pieces of information to include in a telehealth progress note:

• Was the communication done by audio or synchronous video & audio?
• What were the start/stop times, along with any other key details regarding the time spent with the patient?
• If possible, did the patient self-report any vitals, such as weight, blood pressure, pulse ox, or glucose & A1C levels?