{"id":16200,"date":"2020-05-27T17:06:54","date_gmt":"2020-05-27T21:06:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/?page_id=16200"},"modified":"2025-12-03T16:40:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T21:40:06","slug":"policy-allowances-related-to-telehealth","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/programs\/data-and-information-technology\/telehealth\/policy-allowances-related-to-telehealth\/","title":{"rendered":"Policy Allowances Related to Telehealth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Traditionally, NCQA has not allowed organizations to include practitioners who provide telehealth services when setting availability and accessibility standards or analyzing performance against standards. In response to COVID-19, NCQA will temporarily allow organizations <strong>with a look-back period between January 1, 2020 and June 30, 2022<\/strong>, to include practitioners who provide telehealth care, for the requirements in the table below. The table identifies applicable elements in Health Plan Accreditation (HPA); however, guidance also applies to applicable requirements in derivative products (e.g., MBHO, UM-CR-PN).<\/p>\n<div id=\"footable_parent_16203\"\n         class=\" footable_parent ninja_table_wrapper loading_ninja_table wp_table_data_press_parent semantic_ui colored_table\">\n                <table data-ninja_table_instance=\"ninja_table_instance_0\" data-footable_id=\"16203\" data-filter-delay=\"1000\" aria-label=\"Standard, Element\"            id=\"footable_16203\"\n           data-unique_identifier=\"ninja_table_unique_id_693472187_16203\"\n           class=\" foo-table ninja_footable foo_table_16203 ninja_table_unique_id_693472187_16203 ui table  nt_type_legacy_table hide_vertical_borders vertical_centered ninja_custom_color inverted footable-paging-right ninja_table_search_disabled ninja_table_pro\">\n                <colgroup>\n                            <col class=\"ninja_column_0 \">\n                            <col class=\"ninja_column_1 \">\n                    <\/colgroup>\n        <thead>\n<tr class=\"footable-header\">\n                                <th scope=\"col\" colspan=\"2\" class=\"ninja_column_0 ninja_clmn_nm_standard_element \"> Standard, Element<\/th><td class=\"ninja_temp_cell\"><\/td><\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n\n        <tr data-row_id=\"877\" class=\"ninja_table_row_0 nt_row_id_877\">\n            <td colspan=\"2\"><b>NET 1: Availability of Practitioners<\/b><\/td><td class=\"ninja_temp_cell\">#colspan#<\/td>        <\/tr>\n            <tr data-row_id=\"878\" class=\"ninja_table_row_1 nt_row_id_878\">\n            <td>B<\/td><td>Practitioners Providing Primary Care <\/td>        <\/tr>\n            <tr data-row_id=\"879\" class=\"ninja_table_row_2 nt_row_id_879\">\n            <td>C<\/td><td>Practitioners Providing Specialty Care <\/td>        <\/tr>\n            <tr data-row_id=\"880\" class=\"ninja_table_row_3 nt_row_id_880\">\n            <td>D<\/td><td>Practitioners Providing Behavioral Healthcare<\/td>        <\/tr>\n            <tr data-row_id=\"881\" class=\"ninja_table_row_4 nt_row_id_881\">\n            <td colspan=\"2\"><b>NET 2: Accessibility of Services<\/b><\/td><td class=\"ninja_temp_cell\">#colspan#<\/td>        <\/tr>\n            <tr data-row_id=\"882\" class=\"ninja_table_row_5 nt_row_id_882\">\n            <td>A<\/td><td>Access to Primary Care<\/td>        <\/tr>\n            <tr data-row_id=\"883\" class=\"ninja_table_row_6 nt_row_id_883\">\n            <td>B<\/td><td>Access to Behavioral Healthcare<\/td>        <\/tr>\n            <tr data-row_id=\"884\" class=\"ninja_table_row_7 nt_row_id_884\">\n            <td>C<\/td><td>Access to Specialty Care<\/td>        <\/tr>\n    <\/tbody><!--ninja_tobody_rendering_done-->\n    <\/table>\n    \n    \n    \n<\/div>\n\n<p>Organizations may include applicable telehealth practitioners for the time within the accommodation period, January 2020-June 2022. Practitioners must provide services for which there is a permanent telehealth and\/or temporary COVID-19 telehealth code based on CMS guidance (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cms.gov\/Medicare\/Medicare-General-Information\/Telehealth\/Telehealth-Codes\">https:\/\/www.cms.gov\/Medicare\/Medicare-General-Information\/Telehealth\/Telehealth-Codes<\/a>). Organizations with Medicaid lines of business may include practitioners who provide paid telehealth services, as defined by the states in which they practice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Traditionally, NCQA has not allowed organizations to include practitioners who provide telehealth services when setting availability and accessibility standards or analyzing performance against standards. In response to COVID-19, NCQA will temporarily allow organizations with a look-back period between January 1, 2020 and June 30, 2022, to include practitioners who provide telehealth care, for the requirements [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":16193,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-16200","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Policy Allowances Related to Telehealth - NCQA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Traditionally, NCQA has not allowed organizations to include practitioners who provide telehealth services when setting availability and accessibility standards or analyzing performance against standards.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/programs\/data-and-information-technology\/telehealth\/policy-allowances-related-to-telehealth\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Policy Allowances Related to Telehealth - NCQA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Traditionally, NCQA has not allowed organizations to include practitioners who provide telehealth services when setting availability and accessibility standards or analyzing performance against standards.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/programs\/data-and-information-technology\/telehealth\/policy-allowances-related-to-telehealth\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"NCQA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/NCQA.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-12-03T21:40:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/NCQA_cmyk_tag.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"627\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@NCQA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/programs\/data-and-information-technology\/telehealth\/policy-allowances-related-to-telehealth\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/programs\/data-and-information-technology\/telehealth\/policy-allowances-related-to-telehealth\/\",\"name\":\"Policy Allowances Related to Telehealth - NCQA\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2020-05-27T21:06:54+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-12-03T21:40:06+00:00\",\"description\":\"Traditionally, NCQA has not allowed organizations to include practitioners who provide telehealth services when setting availability and accessibility standards or analyzing performance against standards.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/programs\/data-and-information-technology\/telehealth\/policy-allowances-related-to-telehealth\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/programs\/data-and-information-technology\/telehealth\/policy-allowances-related-to-telehealth\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/programs\/data-and-information-technology\/telehealth\/policy-allowances-related-to-telehealth\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Our Programs\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/programs\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"Data and Information Technology\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/programs\/data-and-information-technology\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":4,\"name\":\"Telehealth\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/programs\/data-and-information-technology\/telehealth\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":5,\"name\":\"Policy Allowances Related to Telehealth\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ncqa.org\/\",\"name\":\"NCQA\",\"description\":\"Measuring quality. 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