Home Health Articles and Information

 CMS has encouraged the use of Tele-visits in home health though they stopped short of actually reimbursing home health for them. Perhaps because they are not reimbursable, there is very little documentation required. 

For home health to use Tele-visits as part of their patient care CMS has two requirements.

• Tele-visits require a signed order

• Tele-Visits may not replace an ordered in-person visit

OperaCare suggests documenting Tele-visits more robustly as this is always best practice.  Several electronic medical records have added a Tele-visit to their product,  if yours has not, making a simple template and uploading it to the patient's chart is recommended.

Good care planning is one of the most important keys to keep margins low and patient outcomes high.  This is especially true when adding Tele-visits. To use Tele-visits to your best advantage they should be in the original plan of care and flow naturally with the in-person visits. Make sure these visits are purposeful and reinforce the in-person teaching and instruction. Carefully planned Tele-visits will improve your outcomes along with patient satisfaction while actually decreasing your cost of care.

We have developed several evidenced-based best practice care plans which incorporate both in-person and Tele-Visits for our users at OperaCare .

Click to here to get your free Tele-visit congestive heart failure care plan now.