OTN Registration as a Telemedicine Provider
If you have not registered with OTN you will need to fill in, sign and return the enclosed Telemedicine Physician Registration Form or download from otn.ca, which is similar to the original OHIP form signed by doctors at the start of their practice. Once the form has been received at OTN, the physician will be registered with OHIP as a telemedicine physician. Once OHIP has processed the registration, a Registration Acknowledgement Letter will be sent to the physician from OTN.
Please note that while telemedicine remains an uninsured service, remuneration continues to be provided through the provincial telemedicine program. Physicians may use their existing OHIP billing process to submit telemedicine services claims for processing and payment by OHIP.
OHIP Fee Codes
Store Forward consultations are aligned with regular fee codes for face-to-face consultations. The OTN premium, which is billable for real time videoconferencing encounters (formerly OTN1 and OTN2, now called B100 and B200), does not apply to asynchronous/Store Forward telemedicine services.
A premium is not paid for Store Forward transactions because, unlike real time telemedicine sessions, the patient is not present at the time of service and the service can be rendered at the physician’s convenience. The telemedicine premiums are paid to recognize the extra time and attention physicians must provide to attend the real-time telemedicine sessions while the patient is present.
A number of data elements are required to bill OHIP. A valid Health Card number is required
for the patient as well as the referring physician’s OHIP billing number. (The hospital’s facility number is not required on the OHIP claim unless the patient is an inpatient at the hospital at
the time of the consultation.)
The physician completing the store forward consultation should bill the service to OHIP using the same fee code as if the service had been provided face to face. Insert OTN in the SLI field and use the B099 code as well (instead of the B100/200) as this identifies it as a store forward consult.
Please note that only the consultant can bill for store forward. The referring physician must bill OHIP for the appropriate office visit service as the claim for building the store forward case. There is no extra service or premium that can be claimed.
A Note about Your Billing Software – the Service Location Indicator (SLI) Code Field
With the direct-to-OHIP billing process, you should be aware that your billing software must include
a Service Location Indicator (SLI) Code Field. The SLI field must be filled in with the alpha characters ‘OTN’ as this identifies the claim as being for telemedicine. If you do not know where the SLI Code Field is located, please contact your software vendor.
The SLI field was introduced by OHIP in April 2006 and earlier billing software does not include
this field. If you are using billing software developed prior to 2006 that does not include the SLI field,
a software update is required. Please contact your software vendor to have your billing software upgraded.
If you require updated billing software, there are three temporary billing options you can consider:
a) Hold telemedicine billings until your software has been updated with the SLI field.
(Physicians have six months from the date of service to submit a billing.)
b) Arrange for a third party billing agency to submit your telemedicine billings.
c) Submit telemedicine billings on OHIP paper claim cards (OHIP charges for a paper claim
will be waived until further notice) which can be printed from the Ministry’s website at: http://www.forms.ssb.gov.on.ca/mbs/ssb/forms/ssbforms.nsf/FormDetail?OpenForm&ACT=RDR&TAB=PROFILE&ENV=WWE&NO=014-4420-84
You can also have pre-printed paper claims made for you (go to: http://www.doculink.com).
OTN is Ontario’s telemedicine network and we are pleased to be working with the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care’s e-Health Program and OHIP to streamline the telemedicine billing process.
More details regarding the direct-to-OHIP billing procedure are outlined on the OTN web site (www.otn.ca and click on the “Physicians & Allied HCPs” tab). If you have additional questions,
please call OTN at 1-866-454-6862 or email
Uploading your signature to Medweb
1. Make sure the image file of your signature is saved to your computer.
2. Make sure you are logged on with your user name and password.
3. Click View Patients in the left navigation pane. This action will cause the Case List to appear.
4. Click Profile in the right navigation pane (Figure 47).
Figure 47. Preferences Link on the View Patients Page
Figure 48. Personal Profile Page
The Personal Profile page appears for the user you are currently logged on as (Figure 48).
Figure 49. Signature Area
1. Scroll down the page until you see the Signature area (Figure 49).
2. Click Browse and navigate to the signature file that you want to upload (.gif or .jpg only).
3. Click the file, and then click Open.
4. Click Confirm Modify.
5. The file is uploaded and the signature appears in the Signature area (Figure 50).
Figure 50. Example Signature Uploaded
To replace the signature file with a different one, repeat the steps above.
Adding your Signature Image to Consultant Report Templates
When a consulting physician uses a report template that came with your Medweb server, the uploaded signature appears automatically on the consult report. If the consulting physician is using a custom-created report template that does not automatically add the uploaded signature; the physician can add the signature manually.
To add a signature to a report:
At this point you should have completed the previous procedure on uploading an image of the
doctor’s signature.
1. Open the medical report that the consulting physician wants his or her signature to appear on.
2. On the report, click where you want to place the signature.
3. From the Select study value drop-down box at the top of the page, select [USER_SIGN].
If you do not see the [USER_SIGN] tag in the drop-down box, the signature file was not uploaded successfully. For instructions on uploading a signature, go to Uploading an Image of a Doctor’s Signature on page 3. After you select [USER_SIGN], the signature appears on the report page.
Adding a Clinic Logo to the Consult Request Forms
You can add your clinic logo to the consult request forms, for example, Figure 57.
Only .gif and .jpg files can be added.
Figure 57. Logo on Consult Request Forms
To add a clinic logo to consult request forms:
1. Open the Telemedicine Settings Page (Figure 58) as described in Steps 1 and 2 on page 4.
Figure 58. Telemedicine Settings Page
2. To add a logo to the consult request form:
3. Scroll down until you see Logo File.
4. Click Browse next to Logo File.
5. A dialog box appears.
6. Navigate to the Logo File. (Only .jpg and .gif files are accepted.)
7. Click Open.
8. Click Save Changes.
Figure 59. Sample Logo
The logo now appears on all consult request forms.
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CONSULTANT INFORMATION FEBRUARY 2011 – OTN STORE FORWARD TRAINING DOCUMENT