April 30, 2020 In response to efforts by organized medicine, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced this afternoon that they will be increasing payments for audio-only telephone visits between Medicare beneficiaries and their physicians to match payments for similar office and outpatient visits. This would increase payments for these services from a range of about $14-$41 to about $46-$110, and the payments are retroactive to March 1, 2020.
This is a major victory for medicine that will enable physicians to care for their patients, especially their elderly patients with chronic conditions who may not have access to audio-visual technology or high speed Internet.
The American Medical Association and the Federation also worked with Senator Hyde-Smith (R-MS), along with Senators Shaheen (D-NH), Manchin (D-WV), and Moran (R-KS), to spearhead the attached letter to HHS Secretary Azar and CMS Administrator Verma on the same topic. The letter sent on April 29 had 37 signers and included the following requests:
- Increase Medicare payment rates for telephone-based evaluation and management (E/M) codes (99441-99443) to bring payments for these codes equal to Medicare’s established in person visit codes (99212-99214) that will ensure that patients without advanced video-sharing capabilities are able to get care virtually, while helping to sustain physician practices.
- Immediately provide guidance to Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) to ensure that recent CMS guidance and rules are followed appropriately to enable the payment of telephone E/M claims.
- Provide Members of Congress with a briefing on CMS efforts to address this issue by May 8, 2020.