The May 25 issue of the Federal Register includes a notice of proposed changes to the Medicare and Medicaid Conditions of Participation (CoPs) regarding the credentialing and privileging of telemedicine providers.
The proposed rule would permit the governing body at a hospital where a patient is receiving telemedicine services to rely on information from a hospital where the provider is currently privileged (distant-site) when making its own privileging decisions. In order to rely on information from the distant-site, the hospital where services are being received must ensure that
- “the distant-site hospital providing the telemedicine services is a Medicare-participating hospital;
- the individual distant-site physician or practitioner is privileged at the distant-site hospital providing telemedicine services, and that this distant-site hospital provides a current list of the physician’s or practitioner’s privileges;
- the individual distant-site physician or practitioner holds a license issued or recognized by the State in which the hospital, whose patients are receiving the telemedicine services, is located; and
- with respect to a distant-site physician or practitioner granted privileges by the hospital, the hospital has evidence of an internal review of the distant-site physician’s or practitioner’s performance of these privileges and sends the distant-site hospital this information for use in its periodic appraisal of the individual distant-site physician or practitioner.”
The proposed rule would also require that the periodic review information submitted to the distant-site include adverse events and complaints received about the physician or practitioner.
The proposed rule was created to address the redundant collection of information at both the distant-site and the site where services are received.
CMS is collecting comments through July 26.
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