WASHINGTON — The next time you message your doctor to ask about a pesky cough or an itchy rash, you may want to check your bank account first — you could get a bill for the question.
The explosion of telehealth over the last three years — driven by the COVID-19 outbreak and relaxed federal regulations for online care — prompted many doctors to adopt more robust telecommunication with their patients. Consultations that once happened in an office were converted to computer or smart phone visits. And health care systems invited patients to use new online portals to message their doctors with a question at any time, American Medical Association president Jack Resneck Jr.
Under new billing rules devised during the pandemic, doctors are permitted to bill Medicare for as little as 5 minutes of time spent on an online message in a seven-day period, according to the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare. The hospital announced in November 2021 it would start charging for some of those messages, after noting a spike during the pandemic. During a year’s time, 1.4% of email threads, or about 13,000, have resulted in a bill.
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