Greetings, SMHCA family!

As many of you transition your clients to telehealth, there is a looming question that is posing quite a problem for clinical mental health counselors (CMHCs); "Will my insurance cover it?"  The best answer we can give is, "Maybe."  The reason?  Some policies have telhealth benefits, and others don't.  Some insurers are expanding telehealth services in response to COVID-19, and others aren't.  To further complicate matters, some CMHCs have telehealth in their contracts, and others don't.  Some insurers require CMHCs to sign an addendum to their contract to permit telhealth.  Finally, some insurers require the CMHC to add a modifier of "GT" to their CPT codes when submitting for reimbursement, and others require "95" as the modifier.  (All, BTW, seem to require changing the location code from 11 "in office" to 02 "telehealth").  We need to contact each insurer to get specific details on how to ensure that we get paid fro Telehealth, but who has time to spend hours on the phone with insurers?

If we pool together our resources, we can make this easier.

Please reply to this message with any verified information you have received from insurers that address the above issues.  It's important for us to share these resources together.  When possible, please attach emails, PDFs, screenshots, or provide hyperlinks so that other CMHCs can see the source of information.