Addressing a Question on the Protecting Rural Telehealth Access Act

In 2021, the HTRC is proud to host a webinar series focused on billing, coding and policy. There are 2 sessions per month focused on a variety of topics. During our HTRC Education Series webinar titled “Telehealth in a Hospital Setting (including CAHs)”, we received a question about the Protecting Rural Telehealth Access Act. The question came from a webinar attendee who works at an urban health system with a robust telehealth program. It was a very specific question, so the answer wasn’t readily available. To make sure that our participants received answer, our presenter, Richelle Marting, JD, MHSA, RHIA, CPC, CEMC, CPMA, CPC-I, did research, filmed a follow up video and created documents to help explain.

Here is the answer we emailed to all of the participants:
We received a great question during the session about the Protecting Rural Telehealth Access Act. Here is the answer from Richelle: After review, the bill would both 1) allow telehealth services to be rendered to patients in any geographic location (whether rural or not), and 2) allow the patient’s home to be an eligible originating site for all telehealth services retroactive to 1/1/21.

See these resources for further explanation:

• A video of Richelle explaining the significance of each change in the documents below: https://youtu.be/dbCcU6v4KuY
• Relevant sections from the Social Security Act that the bill would revise. (attached as PDF)
• Redlined version of the text (attached as word doc)

We also followed up with the individual who originally asked the question to see if there was any follow up needed or additional questions. He replied that he had watched the video and reviewed the documents and they did a great job of addressing his question and increased his understanding of the Protecting Rural Telehealth Access Act.

After sharing this answer with participants, we also let them know that they could ask Dr. Marting questions and would thoroughly answer them. Subsequently, we’ve had several questions come in that Dr. Marting has helped answer. We’re proud to provide education not only during the webinar, but afterwards on an individual basis.