Providers who use their home address as a distant site or place of service for telehealth services are putting themselves at risk, according to healthcare coding and reimbursement consultant Terry Fletcher.
Ms. Fletcher advises some of the nation's largest health systems on their coding and billing practices, and she is concerned that some providers are inadvertently publishing their home addresses online and in payer directories when they list their home as a practice location for telehealth services.
"Remember that at the end of 2023, you must add this location to your Medicare enrollment form, along with any commercial insurance plans that mandate that you disclose any locations where you practice," she wrote on LinkedIn in May. "Which means your home address may now be on any Google or network search, and that is public."
"Do you really want to put yourself and your family in jeopardy like this? This is invited risk 101," she wrote, urging clinicians to return to their offices.
"There are also HIPAA, OSHA and other regulatory concerns, and commercial zoning permits when working from home. But the risk that this could put you and your family in, when it isn't to stop or slow the spread of COVID, isn't worth that risk," Ms. Fletcher wrote.