CMS delays Joint Commission telemedicine rules until 2011

CMS has pushed back a deadline for Joint Commission-accredited hospitals to implement telemedicine performance and credentialing standards, less than two months before the planned compliance date. CMS made the decision to move the deadline from July 15, 2010, to March 2011 because the agency on May 26 proposed a new rule on credentialing and privileging telemedicine providers under Medicare and currently is in a 60-day comment period on that proposal.

CMS and the Joint Commission have been going back and forth for a year trying to harmonize their rules on telemedicine credentialing for providers seeing remote patients located in different states. CMS last September made changes to the Medicare credentialing requirements, but had demanded more specificity in requirements set by the Joint Commission, which has authority to credential hospitals on behalf of CMS.

"The Joint Commission believes that there would be an adverse effect on the access to some telehealth services if organizations are not allowed to comply with the original Joint Commission requirements addressing credentialing and privileging by proxy. The Joint Commission also believed that the CMS requirements placed an undue burden on many organizations without improving the quality of services, provider accountability and the effectiveness of the credentialing and privileging processes or their accountability," the Joint Commission says in a June 3 notice.

To learn more:
- take a look at this Healthcare IT News story
- see this announcement from the Joint Commission

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