TECHNOLOGY: Paying for online consults

Dec 30, 2003• 2

This fairly routine article about the very slow growth in online (email) consults had one line that made me sit up and pay attention.

The payment obstacle may be lowered Jan. 1, when the American Medical Association creates a reimbursement code for online communication between doctors and patients.

At the least the more dubious online pharmacies can now double bill the insurers of the patients they’re already charging for the "consults" that get them prescriptions. OK that was just a wisecrack, but one day we may just wake up and find that the adoption of the online email visit as a compensated service just kind of happened– because of this new CPT code.

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