CMS has issued a Long-Term Care Nursing Homes Telehealth and Telemedicine Tool Kit. CMS says:

“This document contains electronic links to reliable sources of information regarding telehealth and telemedicine. Most of the information is directed towards providers who may want to establish a permanent telemedicine program.

There are specific documents identified that will be useful in choosing telemedicine vendors, initiating a telemedicine program, monitoring patients remotely, and developing documentation tools. However, there is also information that will be useful for providers who wish to care for patients through the virtual services that may be temporarily used during the COVID-19 situation.

The OCR flexibilities with HIPAA are particularly important during this time as it allows the immediate utilization of commonly available programs such as FaceTime and Skype (in addition to others), which are now a very low cost option for any provider in any setting.”

This may be of interest to members with ICFs.