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Telehealth a great boon for advance care planning — but don’t get sloppy with consent

06/08/2020

Among the telehealth services newly available to many providers and their patients, advance care planning (ACP) offers an especially rich opportunity to providers with homebound patients. But experts warn that, outside of the telehealth exemption, you should pay special attention to the many requirements that still apply.

When patient refuses to wear a mask, stand on rights or work to accommodate

06/08/2020

by: Roy Edroso

With many Americans refusing to wear masks in public despite the continuing COVID-19 health emergency, you should be prepared for patients who argue that they can’t and won’t wear one to your practice.

CPT-listed times are OK for telehealth E/M code selection, CMS says

06/08/2020

by: Laura Evans

When determining a telehealth E/M code level based on time, practices can use the average times listed for each office visit code in the CPT manual, the agency stated in an interim final rule issued April 30 in response to the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE).

Watch the clock, documentation rules if you plan on time-based E/M coding in 2021

06/08/2020

by: Julia Kyles

Starting Jan. 1, 2021, changes to office E/M guidelines will give providers the option to code based on the total time they spend on a patient’s care on the date of service. However, two recent legal actions show that practices will need to count the minutes carefully to avoid improper coding.

Review CMS’ definition of an OR before appending modifier 78

06/08/2020

by: Laura Evans

Question: I work for a group of general surgeons and quite often our patients are brought back into our office and taken to our patient rooms where an incision and drainage may be performed of a hematoma or a seroma. I have billing these with a 78 modifier. Now I am told that the 78 is used only if the patient is taken back to the hospital operating room.

Critical care code growth, denials, changes look promising – but danger lurks

06/08/2020

by: Roy Edroso

Though the critical care codes 99291 and 99292 appear to reside in the natural province of emergency medicine providers, this groups files fewer than one-third of these E/M claims. The rest are done by various specialties, including cardiology and family and internal medicine providers.

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