Eli's Rehab Report

Just as your usual documentation must be bulletproof to support your insurance payments, it must also be able to support your functional limitation severity modifiers.

The front line therapist must tackle the tedious task of “ensuring the documentation is present to support and justify the rating that is assigned in the modifier,” says Kate Brewer, PT, MBA, GCS, RAC-CT, president of Greenfield Rehabilitation Agency in Greenfield, WI and president of Progressive Rehab Solutions.

Applying severity modifiers is a “new area,” Brewer says. “We have not seen review associated with it, [so] there is a little uncertainty to determine how much documentation is ‘enough’ to justify what Medicare is looking for.” 

Good idea: “We have added a section in the documentation for G-code justification,” says Meryl Freeman, MS, PT, manager of outpatient rehab at Rex Healthcare in Raleigh, NC.