Requirements

Health insurance plans must provide coverage for health care service delivered through telemedicine by a health care provider at a distant site to a patient at an originating site to the same extent that the plan would cover the services if they were provided through in-person consultation.

An originating site is the location of the patient, whether or not accompanied by a health care provider, at the time services are provided by a health care provider through telemedicine, including a health care provider’s office, a hospital, or a health care facility, or the patient’s home or another nonmedical environment such as a school-based health center, a university-based health center or patient’s workplace.

A distant site is the location of the health care provider delivering services through telemedicine at the time the services are provided.

A health plan may limit coverage to health care providers in the plan’s network.  A health plan cannot impose limitations on the number of telemedicine consultations a covered person may receive that exceed limitations on in-person services.  Health plans are not prohibited from limiting coverage to only services that are medically necessary and clinically appropriate for delivery through telemedicine, subject to the terms and conditions of the covered person’s contract.

SOURCE: VT Statutes Annotated, Title 8 Sec. 4100k. (Accessed Mar. 2024).

Audio-Only Telephone

A health insurance plan shall provide coverage for all medically necessary, clinically appropriate health care services delivered remotely by audio-only telephone to the same extent that the plan would cover the services if they were provided through in-person consultation. Services covered under this subdivision shall include services that are covered when provided in the home by home health agencies.

A health insurance plan may charge an otherwise permissible deductible, co-payment, or coinsurance for a health care service delivered by audio-only telephone, provided that it does not exceed the deductible, co-payment, or coinsurance applicable to an in-person consultation.

A health insurance plan shall not require a health care provider to have an existing relationship with a patient in order to be reimbursed for health care services delivered by audio-only telephone.

SOURCE: VT Statutes Annotated, Title 8 Sec. 41001. (Accessed Mar. 2024).