ArticleBMC health services research2019
Validation of use of billing codes for identifying telemedicine encounters in administrative data.
Article in BMC health services research, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Primary Care Telemedicine vs In-Person Antibiotic Prescribing for Pediatric Respiratory Tract Infections.JAMA network open · 2026Article
- The association between rurality, dual Medicare/Medicaid eligibility and chronic conditions with telehealth utilization: An analysis of 2019-2020 national Medicare claims.Journal of telemedicine and telecare · 2025Article
- Characteristics of Veterans Experiencing Homelessness using Telehealth for Primary Care Before and After COVID-19 Pandemic Onset.Journal of general internal medicine · 2024Article
- ChartSweep: A HIPAA-compliant Tool to Automate Chart Review for Plastic Surgery Research.Plastic and reconstructive surgery. Global open · 2021Article
- Telemedicine and Outpatient Subspecialty Visits Among Pediatric Medicaid Beneficiaries.Academic pediatrics · 2020Article
- The World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Emergency and Trauma (WHO-CCET) in South East Asia, The World Academic Council of Emergency Medicine (WACEM), and The American College of Academic International Medicine (ACAIM) 2021 Framework for using Telemedicine Technology at Healthcare Institutions.Journal of emergencies, trauma, and shockArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundTelemedicine is the use of telecommunication technology to remotely provide healthcare services. Evaluation of telemedicine use often relies on administrative data, but the validity of identifying telemedicine encounters in administrative data is not known. The objective of this study was to assess the accuracy of billing codes for identifying telemedicine use.
methodsIn this retrospective study of encounters within a large integrated health system from January 2016 to December 2017, we examined the accuracy of billing codes for identifying live-interactive and store-and-forward telemedicine encounters compared to manual chart review. To further examine external validity, we applied these codes and assessed patient and visit characteristics for identified live-interactive telemedicine encounters and store-and-forward telemedicine encounters in a second data set.
resultsIn manual review of 390 encounters, 75 encounters were live-interactive telemedicine and 158 were store-and-forward telemedicine. In weighted analysis, the presence of the GT modifier in the absence of the GQ modifier or CPT code 99444 yielded 100% sensitivity and 99.99% specificity for identification of live-interactive telemedicine encounters. The presence of either the GQ modifier or the CPT code 99444 had 100% sensitivity and 100% specificity for identification of store-and-forward telemedicine encounters. Applying these algorithms to a second data set (n = 5,917,555) identified telemedicine encounters with expected patient and visit characteristics.
conclusionsThese findings provide support for use of CPT codes to perform telemedicine research in administrative data, aiding ongoing work to understand the role of non-face-to-face care in optimizing health care delivery.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.