Proposed 2017 Physician Fee Schedule Includes Telehealth Changes

Yesterday CMS released its proposed changes to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule for Calendar Year 2017, which include several provisions related to telehealth.

First, CMS proposes to expand on Medicare's reimbursable tele-nephrology codes by adding three “per-day” end-stage renal disease CPT codes, 90967-90970. It also proposed making reimbursable two advance care planning codes (99497-99498) and creating new G-codes for critical care consultations, GTTT1 and GTTT2, valued at work RVUs of 4.0 and 3.86 respectively. 

CMS declined to add codes related to observation care, emergency department visits, psychological testing, physical and occupational therapy, and speech language pathology. 

Finally, CMS is proposing to introduce a telehealth place of service (POS) code to clarify that distant-site physicians should use the POS code of the patient's location, not their own. The proposed telehealth POS code would be paid using facility PE RVUs. 

Comments on the proposed rule must be submitted by September 6, 2016.