Providers at Vanderbilt can decide to bill patients for My Health at Vanderbilt messages if they take longer than five minutes to answer and involve a new medical problem or symptom, medication changes, chronic disease check-ins, changes to a condition or form request.
“Our clinicians had been letting us know that they were inundated with a large number of messages from patients,” Kelly Brown, MD, a Vanderbilt neurologist who led a committee tasked with addressing the issue, said in an Aug. 10 news release announcing the change.
“While we absolutely know the importance of patients being connected with their care teams, we felt we could bring this more into balance with minor adjustments to our messaging process,” Dr. Brown continued.
Meanwhile, charges for messages with Mayo Clinic providers could reach up to $50 and apply to messages that require a diagnosis or other clinical decision, the Star Tribune reported Aug. 14.
“The volume and type and complexity of these messages has been increasing really exponentially,” Conor Loftus, MD, chair of Mayo’s outpatient practice subcommittee, told the news outlet. “Within those messages, the type of care being delivered … often involves care coordination and complex decision-making.”
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