Medicare Beneficiaries in Rural Areas Get Telemedicine
Patients in rural or remote communities in America often have a difficult time receiving much-needed health care services. To overcome this difficulty the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has finalized a rule for telemedicine services so Medicare beneficiaries can receive the best care and cutting-edge medical assistance from local hospitals.
The new rule simplifies the process for hospitals to credential and grant privileges to physicians and health care practitioners to deliver care through telemedicine. This is particularly beneficial to those rural or remote areas that may lack sufficient staff or resources to deliver specialized services.
“Rural providers face unique challenges in serving the medical needs of their beneficiaries,” notes Alan Weinstock, an insurance broker at MedicareSupplementPlans.com. “Utilizing technology to better serve this community is a big step toward delivering care to these patients.”
Medicare Beneficiaries in Rural America
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “about one in four Medicare beneficiaries live in rural America, and rural providers serve a critical role in areas where the next nearest provider may be hours away.”
The problem is that many rural providers have higher costs than their more urban counterparts. Plus they face the difficulty of maintaining enough patients to break even. To counterbalance these difficulties and address the needs of Medicare beneficiaries in rural and remote areas, Medicare has made exceptions and special arrangements.
Understanding Telemedicine
Telemedicine is the exchange of medical information from one site to another via two-way, real time interactive communication. The sharing of information can be between the patient and his or her physician(s) or between two or more health care professionals.
Specialty medicines often use a more specialized form of the telemedicine term, such as teleradiology or telecardiology.
New Telemedicine Rule on Credentialing
Previously practitioners could not provide care via telemedicine unless they were granted practice privileges both by their home hospital as well as by the remote hospital. It required a complete examination and verification of each practitioner’s credentials including licensing, ability to practice in a state, training and experience, certifications and clinical skills and abilities.
The intent of the new rule is to reduce this burden both for the Medicare-participating hospitals that provide telemedicine services as well as those that use the service by providing an option to streamline the credentialing process. This is good news for all patients, but especially for seniors on Medicare who may have chronic illnesses that require specialty services.
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