# pain/psych intern coding help



## HBROCKMAN (Dec 3, 2010)

I work for a pain management doctor and he has a psych doctor come into our office to do pysch evaluations before they implant a stimulator or pump in a patient.  This psych dr would like to have his interns come to our office and do the evals, but the pysch dr will be at his own office, so the intern will be on his own.  Who would get to bill for the psych eval at that point....my physician?  Any help on this would be appreciated, I have never heard of such a thing before.


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## dwaldman (Dec 3, 2010)

Wouldn't that be the pyschologist's deal on the logistics of billing of intern without his supervision? Your physician is just requesting the evaluation, he not going to be responsible for the billing for pyschologist or the interns services.


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## HBROCKMAN (Dec 6, 2010)

Yes it should be the psychologists problem....but my physician was thinking he could bill for the psych intern...since he would be at the office, when the psychologist was not.  

I do not agree with this at all, we are not the "teaching physician" for this intern...I just do not have any experience in intern billing, so I am doubting my gut instinct a little.


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## dwaldman (Dec 6, 2010)

http://www.cms.gov/manuals/Downloads/bp102c15.pdf

Above is the link to the Medicare's Benefit policy manual. Within this manual, it has the incident to benefits that you can review with the physician. You can start reviewing the guidelines on page 77. They also describe this relationship on the back of cms-1500.

The thing is the intern is not an expense to the practice which would be described in the following paragraph:

"However, the physician personally furnishing the services or supplies or supervising the auxiliary personnel furnishing the services or supplies must have a relationship with the legal entity billing and receiving payment for the services or supplies that satisfies the requirements for valid reassignment. As with the physician‟s personal professional services, the patient‟s financial liability for the incident to services or supplies is to the physician or other legal entity billing and receiving payment for the services or supplies. Therefore, the incident to services or supplies must represent an expense incurred by the physician or legal entity billing for the services or supplies"


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## HBROCKMAN (Dec 7, 2010)

Thank you so much for your reply!  That gives me a little more ground to stand on when I take this to my physician.


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