Under a new regulation unveiled by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, physicians and other authorized providers now must document their face-to-face encounters with patients when they are authorizing home health services but those encounters can be conducted through telehealth.

This approach, already part of the Medicare program, applies only to Medicaid fee-for-service patients and not to those served by managed care plans.

In addition, the rule regulates how recently providers must have their encounters with patients when prescribing home health services and provides those services in settings other than the home.

For a closer look at the new regulation, see this Fierce Healthcare article and this CMS fact sheet.