Gastroenterology Coding Alert

Reviews are on the way for telehealth services you provided during the PHE.

When the government paused healthcare-related audits during the coronavirus pandemic, most practices knew the change wouldn’t be permanent, but it was unclear when those reviews would resume. However, CMS announced in July that it planned to resume most Medicare fee-for-service medical reviews by August 3, and although many of those audits will focus on targets that were identified before the COVID-19 emergency began, practices should also be ready for reviews of their telehealth claims as well.

That was the word from Frank Cohen, director of analytics and business intelligence with Doctors Management, during the firm’s July 16 webinar “Audit Analytics: Post-Pandemic Preparation.” Practices that aren’t prepared for these reviews could face having to refund money they’ve collected, and during a time when physicians’ offices are already stretched thin financially, he said.

“It’s not just that the pandemic has been a financial disaster for a lot of healthcare organizations, but it’s changing the way the government is going to approach auditing to some degree,” he added. “CMS has said whether or not the public health emergency (PHE) continues into the future, they don’t plan to continue suspending these audits beyond August,” he said.

Past Audits Suggest Telehealth Errors Are Rampant

Although telehealth was in play prior to the pandemic, you could measure the US’ volume of telemedicine services in the tens of thousands at that point, Cohen said. “But since the COVID pandemic, you can now measure them in the tens of millions. By 2026, they’re predicting it will be a $95 billion industry for telehealth.” Therefore, he says, government entities will investigate whether claims for these significant expenditures are being reported and documented properly. However, past audits indicate that errors are common among these claims.

“In a past audit, when the OIG looked at an audit of 100 claims in a sample of all telehealth services, 69 percent met requirements, so that means 31 percent of all telehealth services did not meet requirements,” Cohen said. “If we apply that to a $30 billion market for the government, that means close to $10 billion faces the potential to be recouped. There was a study done in South Carolina in 2016 or 2017 where they found 96 percent of telehealth services were improperly documented.”

Confusion Reigns in Medical Practices

One thing that Scott Kraft, CPC, CPMA, senior compliance consultant with Doctors Management, has seen during early audit work is that there is quite a bit of confusion between audio-only visits and those visits that include both audio and video. “Most relaxed rules have given you a much wider berth for video communication than what telehealth previously had,” he said. For example, there are things like FaceTime or interactive services that haven’t been cleared security-wise that are fine during the length of the PHE. However, the burden of documentation lands on the provider to state whether they performed an audio visit or if it included both audio and video, and Kraft knows from Medicare encounters that there may be situations where patients may not know how to do an interactive video call.

“I’ve already seen dozens of telehealth encounters, in the limited audit work I’ve done in this area where I have no idea based on the documentation if it was audio or video,” he said. “But in the descriptions for the codes 99201-99215 (Office or other outpatient visit…) that are typically used for telehealth, the face-to-face requirement still applies, it just has to be done by video.”

When audio is used without video, the right codes to report are 99441-99443 (Telephone evaluation and management service), Kraft noted. “But the burden falls on the provider to make sure it’s clear in the documentation whether the visit is taking place from an audio versus video perspective.”

Practices should always include a statement in the note that makes clear that the visit took place via audio and video communication when applicable, “and I encourage people to document whether it’s via FaceTime or some other service, but it should be clear how the visit was done to ensure that when reviewed, it’s clear that it was a telehealth service and not a telephone service.”

Billing Based on Time? Document That Clearly

“One thing that was done that works in favor of the providers is that during the PHE, the E/M service level can be selected by the traditional metrics of history, exam, and medical decision making (MDM) — or time, and time is defined as all time associated with the E/M service,” Kraft said. This is due to CMS adopting the 2021 rule for time documentation rather than the current regulations, which require you to ensure that 50 percent of the visit is spent on counseling or coordination of care.

“So when we look at the documentation and we see time documented, we aren’t looking at what we think of as the current traditional time rule where more than half is spent on counseling/coordination of care — we really only need the total typical service time that should be aligned with the E/M code.”

When he audits, Kraft looks at time documented and the MDM, and asks himself which coding method most favors the provider. “So I may see documentation that states the visit lasted 10 minutes, which would align with 99212, but the MDM supports 99213, so in that scenario I’m not constrained to 99212 because it took 10 minutes,” he says.

He also reminds practices that the same amount of time can’t be documented for every patient. “Time should be unique and specific to each patient encounter,” Kraft said. “When every single 99214 says 25 minutes for telehealth, that’s concerning. So we do want to make sure time is accurate for each patient.”

Note that the definition of time for 2021, which Medicare is allowing this year, means total time the day of encounter related to the E/M encounter, not just the time spent with the patient via media. Don’t count on private payers to acknowledge this 2021 Medicare standard for documenting time, or what elements of history and exam are needed for a given level of service.

In addition, make sure your documentation doesn’t include statements for services that can only be performed during in-person visits. “I see a lot of telehealth visits right now that have documented exams for things that I would like the physician to demonstrate how they managed to perform them,” Kraft said. “You aren’t palpating a patient, for example.”

“I see situations where the parent or guardian is touching the patient and describing it and that may be clinically helpful in terms of treatment, but I don’t consider that to be part of the physician’s exam to hear a parent say the patient is ‘warm,’” Kraft says. “It’s up to the physician’s clinical judgement to render findings based on what comes within the exam.”