# Physician/NP visit frequency



## kcorral0829@aol.com (Sep 4, 2013)

Under 'Incident to' guidelines, how many times can a Nurse Practitioner see a patient before the patient needs to be seen by a Physician?


----------



## capricew (Sep 5, 2013)

I do not believe there is any set amount of visits.  The guidelines just state that a plan of care must be established by the supervising physician before the NP/PA-c can see them.  Once the NP/PA-c starts seeing the patient, while the supervising physician is in the same suite, the supervising physician just needs to occasionally re-acquaint with the patient so to speak.  But, if the patient is not getting improvement then it is always a good idea to have the supervising physician see the patient instead of the NP/PA-c.
Now, if the NP/PA-c sees the patient for a problem not in the original plan of care, the visit cannot be billed incident to.  At that time, the NP/PA-c should probably have the doctor come in on the visit and address the new problem to establish a new plan of care to include the new problem.

Hope this helps!


----------



## Candice_Fenildo (Sep 6, 2013)

100% agree to the post stated above. Great job explaining..


----------



## capricew (Sep 17, 2013)

Thank you Candyr73!


----------

