POS 10: Telehealth Provided in Patient's Home
POS 10 is the place of service code for telehealth delivered while the patient is in their home, including apartments, hotels, and temporary lodging. Medicare pays POS 10 at the higher non-facility rate, which is why coding home telehealth as POS 02 instead can cost a practice roughly $51 per 99214 visit in 2026.
- Setting
- Telehealth, patient at home
- Rate type
- Non-facility (higher payment)
- Common pairing
- Modifier 95 with 99202-99215, 90834/90837
- Watch out for
- Confusing it with POS 12 (in-person home visit)
What does POS 10 mean?
POS 10 tells the payer a telehealth service was furnished while the patient was located in their home. CMS created it effective January 1, 2022, splitting the old catch-all telehealth code 02 into two: POS 02 for patients anywhere other than home, POS 10 for patients at home.
"Home" is the patient's location, defined generously: private residence, a family member's house, temporary lodging like a hotel, or any non-institutional space where the patient lives or is staying. The provider's location is irrelevant to POS selection. The complete code list lives in our Place of Service reference table.
When do you use POS 10?
Use POS 10 whenever the patient joined a telehealth encounter from home. In most outpatient practices that is the overwhelming majority of virtual visits: follow-ups, med checks, therapy sessions, chronic care visits. Behavioral health runs almost entirely on POS 10 now, since psychotherapy codes 90832-90838 and E/M visits are routinely done with the patient on their couch.
Ask at check-in, not at coding: "Where will you be for your video visit?" The front desk or the provider should document the patient's stated location in the note. That one sentence is your audit defense and your coder's answer to the 02-versus-10 question.
How does POS 10 affect payment?
POS 10 is paid at the Medicare non-facility rate, the same rate as an in-office visit. That matters because the alternative telehealth code, POS 02, pays the facility rate. For 99214 in 2026 the national average is about $135.61 non-facility versus roughly $84.50 facility, a swing of around $51 per visit before locality adjustment.
Multiply that across a panel. A behavioral health group running 200 home telehealth E/M visits a month coded correctly as POS 10 instead of defaulted to POS 02 protects roughly $10,000 a month in Medicare revenue. Price your own mix with the Medicare fee calculator, and if you suspect historical miscoding, a billing audit of last quarter's telehealth claims will show the leak in an afternoon.
What are the common POS 10 errors and denials?
The classic error is the silent one: home visits going out as POS 02 and paying at the lower rate with no denial to catch anyone's eye. The reverse error, POS 10 when the patient was actually at a facility, is an audit finding because you were overpaid.
- CARC 5 (procedure inconsistent with POS): billing a hands-on service such as 96372 with POS 10.
- CO-16 missing information: commercial payers wanting modifier 95 or 93 alongside POS 10.
- Front-end rejections when POS 10 hits a payer that has not loaded the code; a handful of small plans still map everything to 02. Call and ask before rebilling.
- Mixing up POS 10 with POS 12 on in-person home visits, which stalls claims in payer review.
Document the patient's location every visit; on postpay telehealth audits, that line in the note is what separates a corrected claim from a refund demand.
Frequently asked questions
CMS reads home broadly: the patient's house or apartment, a relative's home where they are staying, a hotel or short-term rental, even an RV or shelter serving as their residence. The test is a non-institutional living space, not property ownership. If the patient joins from a clinic, school, workplace, or nursing facility, use POS 02 instead.
POS 10 is a telehealth visit while the patient is home; the provider is somewhere else on video or phone. POS 12 is an in-person home visit where the provider physically travels to the residence, typically billed with home visit codes 99341-99350. Swapping them triggers edits, because telehealth E/M codes with POS 12 look like an impossible claim to most payer systems.
Under Medicare, yes in structure: POS 10 maps to the same non-facility rate as POS 11, so a 99214 done by video with the patient at home prices like a 99214 in your office. Commercial payers vary; some pay telehealth at parity, others apply a percentage reduction regardless of POS, so check each contract rather than assuming Medicare logic.
Medicare uses the POS code to identify telehealth and modifier 95 to confirm audio-video (93 for audio-only), and many MACs and virtually all commercial payers expect the modifier on the line. Appending 95 to every synchronous video visit is the safe standing rule. The modifier does not change payment; POS 10 is what secures the non-facility rate.
Sources & further reading
Reviewed by the ImmediCare Solutions RCM team
Certified billers and coders handling claims across 50+ specialties nationwide. This entry is reviewed against current payer policy and CMS rules. Last review: Jul 5, 2026.
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