E/M burden reduction call will target specific ways to make E/M visits easier

For each question, participants will be queued and have a maximum of 3 minutes each to provide

input/opinion.

 

When responding, please provide your name; the practice/facility or professional association with

which you are affiliated and its location; and your specialty or title/role.

1. How can CMS reduce burden associated with documentation of patient E/M visits for billing?
2. What approaches to payment and documentation do others outside of Medicare, such as private insurers, use for E/M visits by level? How do they take into account issues like history, physical exam and body systems, medical decision-making, face-to-face clinical time, non face-to-face care, among other issues?
3. How much of a role should the currently required items (history, physical exam, and medical decision-making) play in supporting an E/M visit level for payment? What are the types of changes you would like to see made to each of these pieces? For example, what might be ways to change how medical decision-making is defined? Should CMS remove its requirements for recording history and physical exam, or should these requirements be reduced (if reduced, how)?
4. What are suggestions for updating documentation rules by changing the underlying E/M code set itself? For example, what might be ways to stratify visits or alternatives to the existing number and type of levels?
5. Some stakeholders have suggested that CMS should not require documentation if the information already exists in the patient’s medical record. Which of the three elements does this apply to most (i.e., which of the requirements involve duplicative re-entry of data that is already in the record)? Do stakeholders think this is a useful approach? How much burden would it relieve?
6. Should there be any specialty-specific changes to the documentation guidelines, and if so what?