If your home health agency has therapists who bill Medicare under Part B for outpatient services, your billing for them shouldn’t have to change just because the public health emergency ended on May 11. “Part B outpatient therapy … furnished remotely by institutional providers of therapy, should continue to be furnished and billed the same way they have been during the PHE, which can include the use of telecommunications technology,” the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services says in its updated CMS Waivers, Flexibilities, and the End of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency Frequently Asked Question set at www.cms.gov/files/document/frequently-asked-questions-cms-waivers-flexibilities-and-end-covid-19- public-health-emergency.pdf.
This reversal “means that PTs in skilled nursing facilities, home health, and rehab agencies can continue to provide remote services under Medicare Part B — although CMS has yet to say when those allowances might end,” the American Physical Therapy Association says in a release. An earlier CMS policy indicated that therapy furnished in hospital-based settings could continue through the end of 2023. But “that ending date, opposed by APTA, doesn’t jibe with telehealth end dates for PTs and PTAs in private practices, which are expected to be extended through Dec. 31, 2024,” the trade group notes. Stay tuned to the forthcoming 2024 physician fee schedule proposed rule for clarification, APTA advises.