Seattle-based UW Medicine plans to start charging for MyChart messages June 27, KIRO reported.
Patients won't be charged for the Epic EHR patient portal messages that take providers five minutes or less to answer or if they lead to an appointment, are related to a visit from the past seven days or are for a medication refill, according to the June 19 story.
"The vast majority of things will remain unbilled. We think less than 5 percent of these messages will be billed," Hunter Wessels, MD, president of UW Physicians, told the news outlet.
However, patients will be charged for new issues (medications, symptoms, chronic disease changes, referrals) or requests to fill out medical forms, KIRO reported. Messages, which will be billed in 10-minute increments, will range in cost from $7 to $28 with Medicaid, $14 to $52 with Medicare and $27 to $98 for people with no insurance. Insured patients will only be responsible for their copay or deductible.
UW providers handled more than 1.5 million MyChart messages last year, according to the story.