Following on to our earlier and more hopeful report [TA 26 May], the change in staff credentialing rules that would facilitate telemedicine by permitting a hospital to rely on a partner facility or even a third party to furnish credentialing and privileging information for clinicians who provide telemedicine services is delayed till March 2011. This report indicates that The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) delayed the Joint Commission’s* requirement to implement CMS telemedicine standards for both general and critical access hospitals. Up until the CMS extension, the deadline for Joint Commission-accredited hospitals to implement the credentialing and privileging changes was 15 July. DotMedNews
* The Joint Commission accredits and certifies more than 17,000 health care organizations and programs in the United States