Q&A: Telehealth facility fee

Q: As our organization provides telephone and telemedicine encounters for services, we are considering using Q3014 for our provider-based departments in addition to the professional E/M. Does anyone have any experience with this code? If provider-based, are you applying this to a UB and the professional E/M to a 1500? 

A: On one CMS call, they specifically said that only the physician professional fee is eligible for payment and there would be no facility fee payment for provider-based clinics. If I recall, this was in regards to billing 99201-99215 codes with visits conducted via FaceTime or Skype, etc.

Note: This question can be found in the COVID-19 category on the NAHRI Forums where you can find answers to questions on a variety of topics relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. This question was answered by Ronald Hirsch, MD, FACP, CHCQM, vice president of R1 RCM in the physician advisory services division in Chicago.