Health Information Compliance Alert

Hint: Opioid abuse treatment gets a boost in 2020.

If you rely on telehealth services to diversify care in your practice, then look no further. The feds finalized more offerings for 2020 that will help you care for patients struggling with opioid abuse.

Background: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the Calendar Year (CY) 2020 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule final rule and its chock full of new codes, policy revisions, payment provisions, and more. The rule, published in the Federal Register on Nov. 15, 2019, offers several changes that modernize Medicare, including E/M updates, Quality Payment Program changes, documentation simplifications, and more.

After positive feedback, CMS followed through with its proposal to add three new HCPCS codes to combat the opioid epidemic. The G codes are part of telehealth services and “describe a bundled episode of care for treatment of opioid use disorders [OUDs],” notes the CMS fact sheet on the final rule.

Take a look at the new telehealth code options for CY 2020:

• G2086 (Office-based treatment for opioid use disorder, including development of the treatment plan, care coordination, individual therapy and group therapy and counseling; at least 70 minutes in the first calendar month)
• G2087 (Office-based treatment for opioid use disorder, including care coordination, individual therapy and group therapy and counseling; at least 60 minutes in a subsequent calendar month)
• G2088 (Office-based treatment for opioid use disorder, including care coordination, individual therapy and group therapy and counseling; each additional 30 minutes beyond the first 120 minutes (list separately in addition to code for primary procedure).

“CMS believes that adding these HCPCS codes will complement the existing policies related to flexibilities in treating substance use disorders (SUDs) under Medicare telehealth,” notes Miranda Franco, senior policy advisor with Holland & Knight LLP in Washington D.C., in the Holland & Knight Healthcare Blog.

Review the MPFS final rule at http://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2019-24086.pdf.