Look to CPT -- Not Templates -- to Assign Levels
Published on Tue Feb 17, 2009
Bean counting is not the best way to code gastro E/M services. After circling relevant items on chart worksheet after chart worksheet for your gastroenterologist's E/M services, you might feel like scrapping those aids for CPT's clinical examples. Before you do so, consider these level-gathering time savers. Look at Examples to Guide Levels Let clinical examples be your guide, according to suggestions from the AMA. "They are intended to serve as a tool to assist physicians in their understanding of the E/M codes and to guide them in determining appropriate E/M code levels," according to CPT Assistant's "Coding Communication" on E/M documentation guidelines (November 2008). While that advice can seem like a time-saver as compared to using an audit worksheet, the method isn't practical. "The number of clinical examples needed to adequately convey the message of the E/M documentation requirements would be far too vast to be effective," says Suzan [...]
