I am a terrible coder. I think I am a pretty good doctor, but when it comes to coding, the process of figuring out which billing code to pick to assign to a bill for an office visit, I am hopeless. No matter how many times I have had the rules explained to me, or how much feedback I have been given about specific visits, or which “pocket guide” to coding I have been handed over the years, I can’t seem to get it right. Even my errors are non-systematic. Sometimes I “overcode” (picking a visit level insufficiently supported by my note) and other times “undercode.” And the things I get wrong are all over the map — sometimes my history lacks some “elements,” sometimes my review of systems covers the wrong number of systems, sometimes my exam is shy an organ or two … you get the idea. It is very hard to get better if you keep doing different things wrong. Of course, this begs the question why doctors should be coding as well as doctoring, but that is an issue for another day.
For now, my deficiency explains why I was intrigued to learn that CMS recently proposed changing the rules governing the coding and reimbursement for physician office visits. Currently, we are bound to rules for so-called “evaluation and management” (E&M) visits that date back to the mid-1990s. The rules align the 5 levels of visit intensity (each coded with a different billing, or CPT code) with required documentation. There are parallel sets of codes (and documentation requirements) for new patient visits and established patient visits. Did I mention that this guidance is 90 pages long? Each code carries a different level of reimbursement, and commercial insurers use the same codes (at different price points) to pay for care of their subscribers.
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