Category 1 - PROFESSIONAL ATTENDANCES
AN.36.6
Eating Disorders Telehealth – Consultant psychiatrists or paediatricians
Eating Disorders Telehealth – Consultant psychiatrists or paediatricians (90262-90263 and 90268-90269)
This note provides telehealth supporting information for eating disorders Items provided via telehealth / videoconference by consultant psychiatrists or paediatricians and should be read in conjunction with Eating Disorders General Explanatory Notes.
Eligible Geographical Areas
Geographic eligibility for telehealth services funded under Medicare are determined according to the Australian Standard Geographical Classification Remoteness Area (ASGC-RA) classifications. Telehealth Eligible Areas are those areas that are outside a Major City (RA1) according to ASGC-RA (RA2-5). Patients and providers are able to check their eligibility by following the links on the MBS Online website (www.mbsonline.gov.au/telehealth).
There is a requirement for the patient and specialist to be located a minimum of 15km apart at the time of the consultation. Minimum distance between specialist and patient video consultations are measured by the most direct (ie least distance) route by road. The patient or the specialist is not permitted to travel to an area outside the minimum 15 km distance in order to claim a video conference.
This rule will not apply to specialist video consultation with patients who are a care recipient in a residential care service; or at an Aboriginal Medical Service or an Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Service for which a direction made under subsection 19(2) of the Health Insurance Act 1973 as these patients are able to receive telehealth services anywhere in Australia.
Telehealth Eligible Service Areas are defined at www.mbsonline.gov.au telehealth eligible areas.
Record Keeping
Participating telehealth practitioners must keep contemporaneous notes of the consultation including documenting that the service was performed by video conference, the date, time and the people who participated.
Only clinical details recorded at the time of the attendance count towards the time of the consultation. It does not include information added at a later time, such as reports of investigations.
Aftercare Rule
Video consultations are subject to the same aftercare rules as practitioners providing face-to-face consultations.
Multiple Attendances on the Same Day
In some situations a patient may receive a telehealth consultation and a face to face consultation by the same or different practitioner on the same day.
Medicare benefits may be paid for more than one video consultation on a patient on the same day by the same practitioner, provided the second (and any following) video consultations are not a continuation of the initial or earlier video consultations. Practitioners will need to provide the times of each consultation on the patient's account or bulk billing voucher.
Referrals
The referral procedure for a video consultation is the same as for conventional face-to-face consultations.
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- Assist - Addition/Deletion of (Assist.)
- Amend - Amended Description
- Anaes - Anaesthetic Values Amended
- Emsn - EMSN Change
- Fee - Fee Amended
- Renum - Item Number Change (renumbered)
- New - New Item
- NewMin - New Item (previous Ministerial Determination)
- Qfe - QFE Change