Sharing privileging information for telemedicine

In 2011, CMS issued a final rule that stated a hospital or critical access hospital seeking telemedicine services (the originating site) can use the credentialing and privileging information from the telemedicine provider’s site (the distant site) to make credentialing and privileging decisions at its own organization. The distant site must meet the following provisions, which must be put in a written agreement:

1. The distant-site hospital providing the telemedicine services is a Medicare-participating hospital.
2. The individual distant-site physician or practitioner is privileged at the distant-site hospital providing the telemedicine services, which provides to the originating site a current list of the distant-site physician’s or practitioner’s privileges at the distant-site hospital.
3. The individual distant-site physician or practitioner holds a license issued or recognized by the state in which the originating-site hospital is located.
4. The originating-site hospital has evidence of an internal review of the distant-site practitioner’s performance and sends the distant-site hospital such performance information for use in the periodic appraisal of the practitioner. At a minimum, this information must include all adverse events that result from the telemedicine services provided by the practitioner to the originating-site hospital’s patients and all complaints the hospital has received about the practitioner.

Source: Medical Staff Briefing