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Otolaryngology Coding Alert

Reader Questions:

Minutes Count for Tobacco Use Counseling

Published on Fri Jul 23, 2010

Question:Our physicians sometimes spend time counseling with patients about tobacco usage and the effects their tobacco usage has left on their body. We, as otolaryngologists, are treating these effects, and want to see the tobacco use stop, to assist in the diminishing of the effects. Is that something we can bill?Nevada Subscriber Answer:As part of your EM service, you can provide counseling. Actually, you can base your level of the EM service on time if total visit time is documented, that 50% of the time was for counseling and what counseling topic(s) were addressed. Since your doctors are not directly addressing the addictive attributes of tobacco, but your physicians are addressing the toxic effects of tobacco, the ICD-9 that would be appropriate for this EM visit including counseling would be: 989.84 (Toxic effects of Tobacco) along with the effect, such as Hoarseness, neoplasm, coughing, mass (site specific), etc. Code 989.84 [...]
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