The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) will allow for the submission of a post office box or personal mailbox, offered by a private delivery service as a practice location address, when a physician does not have a physical location other than their home address, heeding the Texas Medical Association’s call.
The agency clarified the change, as well as what other data physicians must submit to obtain and maintain a National Provider Identifier, after TMA, in conjunction with the American Medical Association, pressed the National Plan and Provider Enumeration System (NPPES) to publish a notice in the Federal Register that expanded upon preexisting guidance.
The update is directed to physicians who exclusively furnish telemedicine services from their own home, don’t have an office address, and refer to in NPPES as entity type code 1. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) says this guidance does not prohibit physicians from listing their home address if they choose to do so.
The changes mirror previous TMA advocacy that pressed CMS to change requirements for physicians to list their home address as a practice location on Medicare enrollment forms.
However, TMA is asking the agency to explicitly clarify their guidance for physicians delivering services from both their homes and their offices. For now, the update implies that physicians who provide services from an office as well as their home would only have to provide their office address and would not need to list a secondary service address.
Other updates added to HHS’ published changes include the selection and dissemination of gender values and gender code options beyond male and female. For example, X can be used to indicate an unspecified or other gender identity, and U can specify an undisclosed gender identity. NPPES will be updated to begin collecting and disseminating these new values on April 3, 2024.
For more information about telemedicine, visit TMA’s Health Information Technology webpage
Last Updated On
March 18, 2024
Originally Published On
March 12, 2024
Alisa Pierce
Reporter, Division of Communications and Marketing
(512) 370-1469