Telemedicine is Now Legal in New Jersey

by | Jul 27, 2017 | Blog

[Author:

GEORGE MARMO  |  Regional Sales Director]

New Jersey has joined the growing list of states who are expanding reimbursement for telehealth services. On July 21, 2017, Governor Christie approved the bill authorizing healthcare practitioners to provide services through telemedicine, effective immediately. Practitioners can now provide healthcare to patients in the state and are subject to the same standards and rates as traditional in-person services.

As defined in the newly minted NJ law, telemedicine

  • uses electronic communications and information technology to bridge gaps between practitioners at “originating” sites and patients at “remote” sites.
  • employs secure, two-way videoconferencing designed to replicate in-person encounters for interactive, real-time visual and auditory communication.
  • allows for transmission of electronic images, diagnostics, and medical records.

Who can perform telemedicine?
Telemedicine practitioners can include doctors, nurse practitioners, psychologists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, clinical social workers, physician assistants, professional counselors, respiratory therapists, speech pathologists, audiologists, and optometrists.

Why This Matters
Removing the requirement for face-to-face visits allows parity reimbursement for remote consultations. This was a significant barrier up to now, but with payment equality, telehealth adoption is bound to accelerate opening the door to many other potential benefits. Patients will appreciate the convenience, especially those who hectic calendars or difficulty arranging transportation.

Beyond Virtual Visits
Practitioners can simply design more efficient workflows to lower their costs – or go bigger by leveraging telemedicine services to manage and coordinate care of their higher touch, higher risk patients with chronic conditions.

Medocity offers comprehensive telehealth solutions for virtual care management, care coordination, and remote patient monitoring in addition to pure televisits.   Hospitals, ACOs, and eligible professionals can select from a portfolio that includes CCM, CPC+, Home Health, Oncology Care, or Chronic Condition solutions.

These tools empower care teams and patients to work together in real time through a single integrated ecosystem, specifically designed to:

  • Close gaps in patient care between physical visits
  • Improve medication and treatment compliance
  • Reduce avoidable hospital readmissions and ER visits

Value-based care is here to stay,.. and now, in NJ telemedicine is too!

 

Additional resources:

NJ Senate Newsletter

About Medocity

Medocity, headquartered in Parsippany, New Jersey, is a recognized leader in comprehensive virtual care products and services including chronic condition management, televisits, and remote patient monitoring. Our unique, innovative technology combines multiple telehealth capabilities onto a single, integrated care coordination and management platform, along with robust clinical intelligence including rules-based algorithms, alerts and decision support tools to help drive earlier detection and proactive interventions.

The Medocity platform is specifically designed to enable and improve patient-centered care delivered outside the hospital setting, particularly for patients at home who have chronic conditions responsible for more than 80% of the nation’s annual healthcare spend. By promoting patient-clinician engagement through shared connectivity and virtual technology, we enable rich, real-time interactions between patients, clinicians, care professionals and support teams.

Virtual care. Real outcomes.™