Practice Management Alert

Remember:  Q5 is a reciprocal-billing modifier

Take care that you don't confuse  modifiers Q5 and Q6 on your locum tenens claims or you could wind up with unnecessary denials.

Billers might confuse modifier Q6 (Service furnished by a locum tenens physician) with modifier Q5 (Service furnished by a substitute physician under a reciprocal billing arrangement), which should not be used for locum tenens billing. Q5 is for reciprocal billing and has nothing to do with locum tenens.

If one community physician fills in for another for a single evening or appointment, you may be able to use modifier Q5. -It is not uncommon for physicians of the same specialty but different practices in a community to cover for each other, especially when it comes to taking night or weekend calls,- says Jean Acevedo, LHRM, CPC, CHC, senior consultant with Acevedo Consulting Inc. in Delray Beach, Fla. With Q5 -the covering physician is not paid for his services when seeing a patient for the regular physician, since this is a reciprocal agreement,- Acevedo says.