As states continue to adopt more robust telehealth policies, each state has a unique approach to how telehealth is treated by Medicaid programs, private payer laws and professional requirements, according to an October telehealth policy report by the Centers for Connected Health Policy.
The Centers for Connected Health Policy examined state law, state administrative codes and Medicaid provider manuals for all 50 U.S. states and found the following nuances and similarities in policies between states:
- One of the biggest changes observed since the report's last edition in the spring is the new place of service coding and telehealth modifiers recently adopted in the Medicare program. Under the new coding, POS 02 indicates telehealth services provided at sites other than the patient's home, and POS 10 indicates telehealth provided in the patient's home.
- Louisiana and Rhode Island are using POS 10.
- Washington Medicaid now provides reimbursement for speech language pathology under Applied Behavioral Analysis.
- Maryland passed a law requiring Medicaid to cover doula services delivered via telehealth.
- Missouri Medicaid now covers teledentistry for specific codes.
- Connecticut extended its private payer telehealth reimbursement law until June 2024.
- Louisiana enacted a payment parity mandate for telehealth services for physical therapy services.
- New York is requiring payment parity for commercial and Medicaid services via telehealth until April 2024.
- Fifty states and Washington, D.C., provide reimbursement for some form of live video in Medicaid fee-for-service.
- Thirty-four state Medicaid programs provide reimbursement for remote patient monitoring.
- Seventeen state Medicaid programs — Alaska, Arizona, California, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Virginia and Washington — reimburse for all four telehealth modalities (live video, store-and-forward, remote patient monitoring and audio-only).