Telemedicine in Texas

As COVID-19 spreads through our communities, there are steps you can take to minimize contact
with patients. A primary step is to implement telemedicine. TMA has developed some quick tips to help you get started.

Texas telemedicine laws and regulations have changed considerably over the past several years, and access has been greatly expanded because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

For example the Texas Medical Board has declared that telemedicine – including the use of telephone only – may be used to establish a physician-patient relationship, under a statewide disaster declaration issued last week.

In the wake of COVID-19, TMA is getting calls about which payers are covering telemedicine. TMA developed this quick reference guide to help you navigate telemedicine reimbursement. This table now reflects Medicare’s waiver of the geographic and place of service restrictions for Medicare (which means patients can now be at home).

Additionally, the Governor directed TDI to issue an emergency rule related to the payment of telemedicine to allow state-regulated plans (about 20% of the commercial market in Texas) to allow telephone and telemedicine visits to be paid at the same rate as in-office visits. If you are not sure which patients are regulated by TDI, check this guide.  Stay tuned for more detail.

Updated 3/31/20

The use of telemedicine has been expanded so physicians can safely and effectively treat patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

However, some people don’t have smartphones with video capability, meaning visits will have to be done via old-fashioned phone calls. 

Which health plans cover telephone-only patient visits, and what exactly do they pay for?

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) will allow physicians to issue prescriptions for all schedule II-V controlled substances via telemedicine as long as specific conditions are met.

In response to Gov. Greg Abbott’s COVID-19 “state of disaster” declaration Friday, the Texas Medical Board (TMB) has taken several steps to help Texas physicians safely and effectively care for patients.
Those actions include expanding the use of telemedicine, temporarily waiving license and permit renewal requirements, and allowing retired physicians to return to active status.

The Texas Medical Association and organizations like the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization are encouraging physicians to consider how they will respond to big surges in sick patients needing care; critical staff becoming ill or unable to come to work; and protecting non-infected patients from exposure to the virus from other patients in the office.

Could telemedicine be part of the solution for your practice?

The Texas Medical Association (TMA) joined The Physicians Foundation, American Medical Association, Florida Medical Association, and Massachusetts Medical Society in launching The Telehealth Initiative to help physicians start telehealth care. With the current health crisis, the organizations sped the initiative’s launch to help physicians shift to telehealth to meet patients’ needs from their homes where they cannot transmit COVID-19 or other diseases to other people.

Telemedicine can provide patients with considerable convenience and satisfaction, but challenges still exist with insurance payments and bottom-line value for individual physicians. That’s what physicians who have successfully integrated telemedicine into their practices told fellow doctors during Saturday’s Dawn Duster presentation at the 2019 Texas Medical Association Fall Conference.

A growing number of physicians are embracing telemedicine.

Because most physicians still have no first-hand experience with it, they have many questions about how it will help them and their patients.

Telemedicine is rapidly evolving, and the number of physicians who use it continues to grow.

Whether you use telemedicine every day in your practice or you’re just starting to consider how it might benefit your patients, you probably have plenty of questions and concerns about using it effectively and within compliance.

That’s why the Texas Medical Association formed a task force that will help TMA serve physicians who want to integrate telemedicine into their practice.

It’s time for Texas to hit the accelerator on fostering more telemedicine use in Medicaid, the Texas Medical Association and several other organizations are telling the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC).

Texas’ new telemedicine law and applicable rules have created new opportunities for physicians to care for patients outside the traditional office visit. Here are answers to three basic questions you might have. (Remember: When treating Medicare patients via telemedicine, follow Medicare rules.)