Telehealth

Sources and review notes

These links support definition-level research and do not establish the regulatory status, safety, or suitability of any product.

HHS describes telehealth as care delivered when the patient and provider are not in the same location and distinguishes synchronous interactions from asynchronous or store-and-forward communication; its patient resources also include secure messaging and remote patient monitoring. HHS OCR separately addresses how HIPAA Privacy, Security, and Breach Notification requirements apply to covered entities using remote communication technologies, and HHS-DOJ guidance explains federal accessibility and nondiscrimination duties for people with disabilities and people with limited English proficiency. CMS maintains a calendar-year list of services payable under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule when furnished via telehealth. These sources do not make every digital interaction a covered telehealth service or establish that a vendor, workflow, clinician, modality, patient location, or claim is compliant, clinically appropriate, licensed, or reimbursable. Teams must verify jurisdiction, provider and patient location, licensure, prescribing, consent, documentation, emergency escalation, accessibility, language access, identity, privacy and security, platform contracting, payer policy, coding, originating-site rules, and current effective dates with qualified reviewers.

• Source 1: telehealth.hhs.gov/providers/getting-started
• Source 2: www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/special-topics/telehealth/index.html
• Source 3: www.hhs.gov/civil-rights/for-individuals/disability/guidance-on-nondiscrimination-in-telehealth/index.html
• Source 4: www.cms.gov/medicare/coverage/telehealth/list-services