Let me give you an example of what I see as being very problematic.

You schedule all the followup patients for 30 minutes. All of them have 50% or greater time as counseling versus determining what is wrong with the patient. You then code every single followup visit based on this, which means one code.

I believe that in short order you will have a lot of people breathing down your neck. How can it be medically necessary for every single followup patient to receive the exact same service???

Frankly, you're going to be doing just as much documentation for a visit based on time as you do a visit based on content, so why not have everybody just get on board and learn how to do it? It is my belief that the ability to code based on time is a safety net, if you will, not your "Plan A". It allows a doctor to spend extra, necessary time with a patient and still get compensated for it.

Make a checklist (there are tons of them out there, including one recently uploaded to the link I have above) and get your doctors used to using them.



Sharon
Moderator

Nothing I say shall be construed as legal advice; always check with your own financial or legal advisors for your specific situation.