NRHA Submits Hospital Telemedicine Credentialing Privileging Comment Letter to CMS
The National Rural Health Association submitted its comment letter this week in response to CMS' proposed changes affecting Hospital and Critical Access Hospital (CAH) Conditions of Participation (CoPs) Credentialing and Privileging of Telemedicine Physicians and Practitioners. The letter voices the NRHA's gratitude that CMS is seeking to lessen the duplicative burdens associated with credentialing and privileging professionals performing telemedicine services via larger distant "hub" hospitals, but also our concern that its limited scope does not reach far enough to include accredited non-hospital telemedicine services. Under the proposed guidance, hospitals utilizing accredited non-hospital telemedicine services, for instance smaller ambulatory care or tele-radiology centers, will still be required to perform credentialing and privileging services even if those distant-site professionals are accredited through the service from which they operate.
The NRHA offers our gratitude for CMS' willingness to take up the issue, but also asks it to recognize the many telemedicine services provided to patients through accredited non-hospital providers by expanding this rule's guidance or by offering new guidance altogether.
To see NRHA's Comments please click here.
