Question

How does the use of telemedicine by providers outside of the organization affect credentialing/privileging decisions? Please be able to provide support for your reasoning.

Answer 1

eHealth is a broad concept used to describe internet or web-based activities that relate to health communication or the broad use of info and communication tech to support health and health-related fields.

Telemedicine is the use of medical info exchanged from one side to another via electronic communications for the health and education of the patient or healthcare provider for improving patient care, treatment, and services enables the delivery of care regardless of geographic location. Telehealth provides access to health assessment, diagnosis, intervention, consultation, supervision, and information across distance.

The main challenges in telehealth are:

1.lecensure
2. credentialing/privileging (the process of getting qualifications of licensed professionals)
3. reimbursement (cost-effective alternative, but states have the option to say whether telehealth will be covered by insurance or not)
4. malpractice/liability (expense to pay for malpractice insurance)

1. The distant-site hospital providing the telemedicine services was another Medicare participating hospital;

2. The individual distant-site physician or practitioner was privileged at the distant-site hospital providing telemedicine services, and that this distant-site hospital provides a current list of the physician’s or practitioner’s privileges;

3. The individual distant-site physician or practitioner held a license issued or recognized by the State in which the hospital whose patients are receiving the telemedicine services is located;

4. With respect to a distant-site physician or practitioner granted privileges by the hospital, the originating-site hospital had evidence of an internal review of the distant site physician’s or practitioner’s performance under these telemedicine privileges and sent the distant-site hospital this information for use in its periodic appraisal of the individual distant-site physician or practitioner.