COVID-19 Telehealth Resources

Emergency Teledental Screening Tool (Denver Health): Scripting for triage of dental patients, including consent, clinical questions, and recommended documentation.

Teledentistry Visit Standard Work (Denver Health): A step-by-step guide for dentists to use during a teledentistry visit, including visit types based on established vs. non-established patients, scripting, consent, documentation, and emergency procedure guidance from the ADA and CDA.

Guidance Document for Patient Assessment via Synchronous Teledentistry: A guide to coaching patients through a teledentistry visit to obtain optimal images for assessment via video or photo. Created by Scott Howell, DMD, MPH, this link also includes one of his recorded webinars on the topic.

Office for Civil Rights Announcements Related to COVID-19: This page includes all the announcements that have been released for HIPAA during the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency

Telehealth Program Assistance Letter (PAL 2020-01):  Within the context of the Health Center Program scope of project, “telehealth” is not a service or a service delivery method requiring specific HRSA approval; rather, telehealth is a mechanism or means for delivering a health service(s) to CHC patients using telecommunications technology or equipment. As such, CHCs are not required to seek prior approval from HRSA for a change in scope to use telehealth, nor separately record the use of telehealth as the means, to deliver a service that is already in scope on Form 5A: Services Provided or to explicitly indicate the use of telehealth on Form 5A.  

During the COVID-19 state of emergency, Medicaid will reimburse CHCs for telehealth services for all normally billable providers at each CHC’s applicable encounter rate. Read more about the authorization.

Behavioral Health

In an effort to remove administrative and regulatory barriers to delivering remote services during the COVID-19 state of emergency, all RAEs are currently allowing outpatient treatment services listed in the Uniform Services Coding Standards Manual (USCSM) to be delivered via audiovisual, telephone, or live chat modalities, when it is clinically viable and appropriate. The Department and the RAEs have NOT changed USCSM requirements, prior authorization policies, or payment rules. Providers must follow each individual RAE’s billing policies.

Specific guidance and frequently asked questions are available from each RAE through the following websites:

• Rocky Mountain Health Plans (Region 1)
• Northeast Health Partners (Region 2)
• Health Colorado Inc (Region 4)
• Colorado Access (Region 3, 5, and Denver Health Medicaid Choice Behavioral Health)
• Colorado Community Health Alliance (CCHA) (Region 6 and 7)

The Department will continue to post updates on policies, codes, and other information important to providers on their website as it becomes available. HCPF will continue to send out communications via bulletins and newsletters too and will post those on their COVID-19 Resource Center.

New & Expanded Flexibilities for RHCs & FQHCs during the COVID-19 PHE

See below for links to pages from various payers with COVID-19 information.

• Anthem
• Bright Health
• Cigna
• Humana.  
• United Health Care

 FAQs on COVID-19 Telehealth Services from the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies

Colorado Division of Insurance FAQs on COVID-19 Telehealth Services

CHC Telehealth Examples: CHC examples of policies, procedures, and workflows related to telehealth are available in the links below. For documents that are password protected please use the password for CCHN’s members-only website. CCHN is seeking sample telehealth/telephone visit workflows, policies, and procedures from Colorado CHCs. If you have a sample to share, please send it to holly@cchn.org.

Telehealth Examples from Community Health Centers

Please note with the rapid developments for telehealth these documents may have been updated since the date they were shared with CCHN.

• Consent for Telehealth Services and Treatment (Clínica Tepeyac)
• Telehealth Etiquette Checklist (Clínica Tepeyac)
• Telehealth Information for Patients (Clínica Tepeyac)
• Telehealth Services Guideline (Clínica Tepeyac)
• Telehealth Starter Guide (Clínica Tepeyac)
• Telehealth Telephone Visit – Ambulatory (Denver Health)
• Telehealth Telephone Visit – Ambulatory Front Desk (Denver Health)
• Teledentistry Visit Standard Work (Denver Health)
• Emergency Teledental Screening Tool (Denver Health)
• Provider Phone Visit appointments Instructions (Frontier)
• Medical Telehealth Workflow (Northwest)
• Behavioral Telehealth Workflow (Northwest)
• Dental Telehealth Workflow (Northwest)
• Telehealth Policy and Procedure (RVFHC)
• Telecommuting Policy (Summit)
• Telecommuting Procedures (Summit)
• Telemedicine during COVID-19 State of Emergency (Summit)
• Telemed Consent (UMC)

Other Telehealth Examples and Resources:

• Workflow sample from American Academy of Pediatrics for provider to patient visit workflow
• National Consortium of Telehealth Resource Centers provides information from Telehealth Resource Centers. Telehealth Resource Centers have been established to provide assistance, education, and information to organizations and individuals who are actively providing or interested in providing health care at a distance. The assistance is generally offered free of charge.
• Rural Telehealth Toolkit from the Rural Health Information Hub includes several resources for telehealth, including workflow mapping examples
• Toolkit from The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS): This comprehensive toolkit on telehealth is specific to general Practitioners. The toolkit contains electronic links to reliable sources of information on telehealth and telemedicine, which will reduce the amount of time providers spend searching for answers and increase their time with patients. 
• Telehealth and Telephone Visits in the Time of COVID-19: FQHC Workflows and Guides from the Center for Care Innovations includes specific telehealth workflows for NextGen and eClinicalWorks, as well as other useful information directed to Community Health Centers.
• Tips and Tricks on telehealth for school-based health care from the Colorado Association for School-Based Health Care.
• Telehealth Implementation Quick Guide from NACHC
• Getting a New Workflow and Process Started During the COVID-19 Pandemic: This tool from HITEQ is a guide for starting new workflows.