Tip: Don't let Medicare's 2010 consultation changes alter your split visit billing. When your physician provides services in the hospital, he may opt to share the work with a non-physician practitioner (NPP) to maximize his time. If you don't know when you can bill those services as split/shared visits, you're costing your physician 15 percent every time. Make sure you're bringing in every dollar by learning these three split/shared visit guidelines. 1. Learn When to Apply Shared Visit Rules Split/shared rules come into play when one of your physicians and a qualified nonphysician practitioner (NPP), such as a physician assistant, both see a patient face to face in the hospital where incident-to rules are not applicable. Each provider performs a distinct part of an E/M service. If the encounter meets shared visit guidelines, you'll be able to report the entire visit under your physician's National Provider Identifier (NPI) " thereby garnering 15 percent more pay for the same service. Remember: How it works: Just like with incident-to services, your physician receives 100 percent of the Medicare allowable when services are reported under his own NPI. If you report the same service under the NPP's NPI, the reimbursement is set at 85 percent of the Medicare allowable. You should apply shared visit billing rules to Medicare and those commercial payers that follow Medicare rules. You shouldn't report shared visits to private insurers until you make sure they allow payment for shared visits. Also, keep in mind that shared/split billing only applies to E/M services provided by nurse practitioners, physician assistants, clinical nurse specialists, and certified nurse midwives in the emergency department, outpatient hospital, and inpatient hospital. 2. Prove Shared Services With Documentation To bill a shared visit under the physician's NPI, the physician must provide and document a face-to-face service for the patient. He must perform at least a portion of the E/M service that involves contact with the patient. When reporting a shared visit, be sure to include the following: Warning: 3. Don't Scrap Split Billing Along With Consultation Coding Although CMS eliminated payment for consult codes this year, contractors will continue to honor split/shared visit billing -- as long as you bill the visits using specific E/M codes and following the payment rules already in place for these E/M codes. The problem: Under past coding policy you could not report the consultation codes as a split/shared visit. You can, however, bill the codes now used for consultations -- 99221-99223 and 99231-99232 -- by rule, as a split/shared visit, allowing the physician full pay when he shared the work for this patient with an NPP. Clarification: "As we're no longer recognizing the consultation CPT codes for purposes of payment under Part B, the split/shared rules regarding consultation services are no longer applicable," CMS's Rebecca Cole said in an Open Door Forum earlier this year. "Since E/M visit codes are being billed for services that were previously reported by the CPT consultation codes, the split/shared rules pertaining to E/M services apply when billing E/M CPT code."