Many people have been hearing telemedicine success stories and want to start using using technology to collaborate and connect with providers and patients.

Most folks use telemedicine to improve patient care and maybe make their lives as providers a little easier. However, those motives don't get around the fact that we all need to be paid for the work we do.

Reimbursement for telemedicine is a crucial part of making the practice sustainable. But it's not always easy to know how to make that possible when the political climate and reimbursement policies are constantly changing.

So here are 4 tips and resources to make sure you're paid for telemedicine:

1. Just do it and worry about reimbursement later. Many of our colleagues have found that when they put collaboration and patient care first, the reimbursement ends up taking care of itself. So pay attention to reimbursement -- but if in doubt, just go ahead and care for the patient or collaborate with telemedicine and let the details sort themselves out later.
2. Use the right codes. We've assembled a list of codes you can use to bill for telemedicine-related time. This is always changing, but keeping an eye on the right codes increases reimbursement significantly.
3. Make sure you're billing for everything you can. Many providers don't know that in addition to patient-related time with telemedicine, you can also bill for time spent collaborating, and even charge a remote site facility fee. 
4. Be smart about pre-authorizations. Always check if the patient’s insurance company needs a prior authorization. If so, text the pre-authorization information and patient insurance plan to the consultant.

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Image courtesy of 68751915@N05 on flickr.com, used under Creative Commons rights.